7 ms·

Oldest Pyramid Found Not in Egypt or Americas, but in Indonesia

41 points by bcaulfield 3y ago

civilitty 3y ago
This is the third time an article about this pyramid has made it to the front page in several weeks. It’s almost certainly BS. The authors used the SHCal20 radiocarbon dating calibration curve but tested volcanic soil samples. C14 depleted CO2 and carbonate minerals dissolved in groundwater coming from Mount Gede a few miles away will make the samples look significantly older than they actually are. SHCal20 is meant to be used with drilled samples from bulk material like bone and fossilized plants, not soil samples that are exposed to the elements for thousands of years. C14 concentrations in the atmosphere vary significantly, over time, especially around volcanically active regions so they need to make their own calibration curve for that specific area to get any kind of accuracy.
- AStrangeMorrow 3y ago
  Miniminuteman goes over "10000 year old Indonesian pyramid" too in his 4h or so debunking of Graham Hancock ancient civilization Netflix series (the usual "big archeology doesn't want you to know about this prediluvian ancient Atlantean civilization"). Link to the relevant section of the video of this debunking series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iCIZQX9i1A&list=PLXtMIzD-Y-bMHRoGKM7yD2phvUV59_Cvb&index=1&t=1018s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iCIZQX9i1A&list=PLXtMIzD-Y-...
  - Qwertious 3y ago
    >(the usual "big archeology doesn't want you to know about this prediluvian ancient Atlantean civilization"). Which is cartoonishly absurd. Imagine how much easier applying for grants would be if you could write "we may find a 10 000 year old civilization with computers and tech rivaling, possibly even surpassing our own". That's so much better than "we're trying to discover whether 3000-year-old copper picks were usually curved at 5 degrees, or closer to 10 degrees. We suspect it's 7ish". It's so dumb.
    - AStrangeMorrow 3y ago
      Yes. Archeologists are often frustrated they can't get funding or enough time at specific locations, not a huge cabal thathas access to the world history abd hides it from everyone. And most discoveries are much more mundane (even though still exciting IMHO) that what people would expect, as you said.
- edgyquant 3y ago
  It doesn’t sound like carbon dating was the only, or based on their words even the main, method used. The claim to have used stratigraphy as well and say they need follow ups with carbon dating to be certain.
  - AStrangeMorrow 3y ago
    I think where I have seen people take issue is that there seems to be a push for "10000 year old pyramid". In short the measurements are correct the conclusions wrong. They split things into 4 big layers, unit 1,2, ancient soil fills and unit 3. With unit 1 the most recent, also split into more find layers. Unit 1 goes to 2000 BCE roughly, 2 to 6000 BCE and then ancient soil 7000-8000 BCE and unit 3 13000 BCE+. Unit 1 has clear megalithic structures and masonry work. Unit 2 is more debatable, with stones and possible mortar remnants showing possible masonry work. But it is mostly some long stones and gravel, all with shapes that can occur totally naturally. After that, ancient soil and Unit 3, from what I could read evidence of proper construction work seems more tenuous, if existant at all. Basically stones and soil. Basically what the paper finds is some surface level masonry work and some deeper level stones they interpret as masonry while it is VERY debatable. Then they take a deep drill, date it to the paleolithic, and frame it as "paleolithic construction". But what most archeologists are reading is "recent construction with possible traces of humans in the area before"
  - civilitty 3y ago
    From the paper [1]: > For example, this study demonstrates that the geophysical layers do not necessarily align with the lithological stratigraphy as depicted from borehole data. The discrepancies highlight the need for caution when interpreting the results and emphasize the importance of considering multiple factors and approaches in the analysis. Which makes sense, since it's a jungle on a volcanically active island. That's a perfect recipe for a very active and varied geology, the kind that would bring up ancient carbon. The errors are likely correlated. I think it's all just a bunch of wishful thinking - the interpretations they make are very tenuous. [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/arp.1912 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/arp.1912
stareatgoats 3y ago
This site is one of the building blocs that Graham Hancock uses to paint an alternate prehistory, involving a forgotten antediluvian civilization that was supposedly responsible for transmitting esoteric seeds of civilization to such disparate places as North America, Mesopotamia, Central America, Polynesia, Indonesia and more. He builds on older, fantastical stories about Atlantis, the lost continent of MU and others and has quite a following. He is most certainly wrong about most of it. But the notion that prehistory still holds a lot of amazing things waiting to be discovered, much of it buried deep in the oceans after the sea rise that occurred after the glaciers of the last ice age melted away just 10.000 years ago or so is most probably true.
- detritus 3y ago
  It'd not even be 'deep' in the oceans, more just a few tens of metres off-shore and down a bit. I'm no fan of Hancock, but I've long thought about how much of our history we're simply blind to because it's not right in front of our eyes.
  - ricksunny 3y ago
    parent's comment seems to denigrate the site itself by associating it with someone named Hancock (who I have non idea who that it is). The article doesn't mention this individual at all. Two things can be true: • something (an object, a site, a finding) can be amazing • someone can have over-indexed on how amazing that thing is ahead of available evidence. Language matterd because this type of guilt-by-association induces a backlash on studying existing evidence and investing in further evidence-gathering (whether supportive or falsifying) efforts. Scientists are all too sensitive to stigmatised or even potentially-stigmatised (watchword: 'controversial') topics b/c their career fundability prospects from grants are at stake.
    - AStrangeMorrow 3y ago
      True. Just because someone uses some else research to push a bad narrative doesn't mean the initial research is bad. But in this case it fairly certainly is. Either by lack of scientific rigor, if not worse. Doesn't make much sense from an archeological standpoint, and there are concerns from the geological standpoint too it seems: Ex: https://www.reddit.com/r/geology/comments/17t81dg/question_regarding_geological_claims_in_recent/ https://www.reddit.com/r/geology/comments/17t81dg/question_r...
ush 3y ago
Maybe it was one single global Pyramid builder company building pyramids in different parts of the world. So a global pyramid scheme :-)
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- layer8 3y ago
  Their computers were probably programmed in Pyramid Scheme.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
narrator 3y ago
I think one implication of there being ancient advanced societies before 10,000 years ago is that it shows that radical eco-primitivism will never be a viable strategy for dealing with resource depletion. This is because advanced society will always reemerge eventually. We either figure out a way to be sustainable in a high technology fashion now or we try it again in 50,000 years.
- pavlov 3y ago
  We’ve burned all the easily available fossil fuels though. So there won’t be another Industrial Revolution on the same blueprint as the one we experienced. The next one will be much more difficult. I read somewhere that the Earth now has so much more fungi that substantial new fossil fuel deposits won’t develop even over hundreds of millions of years. If that’s true, we were lucky bastards to have chanced on the only easily accessible massive fuel resources in this planet’s entire history.
  - edgyquant 3y ago
    This is often repeated but is an opinion and nothing more. There are an untold number of ways to discover the use of electricity
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      There's a significant difference between discovering electricity and powering a civilization off it.
      - Qwertious 3y ago
        Is there, though? Perhaps discovering electricity (I.e. electric generator and motor) inevitably leads to industrialization. We don't know, since we invented both complex water-powered textile machines and steam engines well before we invented electricity, so we don't really know how a complex medieval society would have reacted to it. Also, if civilization collapses it's still fairly likely that a powerdrill will survive (not necessarily functioning, but intact enough that people will look at it and play with copper spirals). Actually, so will internal combustion engines probably, although that won't do much without the requisite metallurgy.
AStrangeMorrow 3y ago
Also this thread on the topic, debating the claim from a geological standpoint' https://www.reddit.com/r/geology/comments/17t81dg/question_regarding_geological_claims_in_recent/ https://www.reddit.com/r/geology/comments/17t81dg/question_r...
dang 3y ago
New evidence strongly suggests Indonesia's Gunung Padang is oldest known pyramid - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38186510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38186510 - Nov 2023 (40 comments) The pyramid of Gunung Padang began construction in the deep past, study claims - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38181200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38181200 - Nov 2023 (40 comments) Gunung Padang - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37760981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37760981 - Oct 2023 (24 comments)

41 points by bcaulfield 3y ago

This is the third time an article about this pyramid has made it to the front page in several weeks. It’s almost certainly BS. The authors used the SHCal20 radiocarbon dating calibration curve but tested volcanic soil samples. C14 depleted CO2 and carbonate minerals dissolved in groundwater coming from Mount Gede a few miles away will make the samples look significantly older than they actually are. SHCal20 is meant to be used with drilled samples from bulk material like bone and fossilized plants, not soil samples that are exposed to the elements for thousands of years. C14 concentrations in the atmosphere vary significantly, over time, especially around volcanically active regions so they need to make their own calibration curve for that specific area to get any kind of accuracy.

AStrangeMorrow 3y ago
Miniminuteman goes over "10000 year old Indonesian pyramid" too in his 4h or so debunking of Graham Hancock ancient civilization Netflix series (the usual "big archeology doesn't want you to know about this prediluvian ancient Atlantean civilization"). Link to the relevant section of the video of this debunking series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iCIZQX9i1A&list=PLXtMIzD-Y-bMHRoGKM7yD2phvUV59_Cvb&index=1&t=1018s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iCIZQX9i1A&list=PLXtMIzD-Y-...
- Qwertious 3y ago
  >(the usual "big archeology doesn't want you to know about this prediluvian ancient Atlantean civilization"). Which is cartoonishly absurd. Imagine how much easier applying for grants would be if you could write "we may find a 10 000 year old civilization with computers and tech rivaling, possibly even surpassing our own". That's so much better than "we're trying to discover whether 3000-year-old copper picks were usually curved at 5 degrees, or closer to 10 degrees. We suspect it's 7ish". It's so dumb.
  - AStrangeMorrow 3y ago
    Yes. Archeologists are often frustrated they can't get funding or enough time at specific locations, not a huge cabal thathas access to the world history abd hides it from everyone. And most discoveries are much more mundane (even though still exciting IMHO) that what people would expect, as you said.
edgyquant 3y ago
It doesn’t sound like carbon dating was the only, or based on their words even the main, method used. The claim to have used stratigraphy as well and say they need follow ups with carbon dating to be certain.
- AStrangeMorrow 3y ago
  I think where I have seen people take issue is that there seems to be a push for "10000 year old pyramid". In short the measurements are correct the conclusions wrong. They split things into 4 big layers, unit 1,2, ancient soil fills and unit 3. With unit 1 the most recent, also split into more find layers. Unit 1 goes to 2000 BCE roughly, 2 to 6000 BCE and then ancient soil 7000-8000 BCE and unit 3 13000 BCE+. Unit 1 has clear megalithic structures and masonry work. Unit 2 is more debatable, with stones and possible mortar remnants showing possible masonry work. But it is mostly some long stones and gravel, all with shapes that can occur totally naturally. After that, ancient soil and Unit 3, from what I could read evidence of proper construction work seems more tenuous, if existant at all. Basically stones and soil. Basically what the paper finds is some surface level masonry work and some deeper level stones they interpret as masonry while it is VERY debatable. Then they take a deep drill, date it to the paleolithic, and frame it as "paleolithic construction". But what most archeologists are reading is "recent construction with possible traces of humans in the area before"
- civilitty 3y ago
  From the paper [1]: > For example, this study demonstrates that the geophysical layers do not necessarily align with the lithological stratigraphy as depicted from borehole data. The discrepancies highlight the need for caution when interpreting the results and emphasize the importance of considering multiple factors and approaches in the analysis. Which makes sense, since it's a jungle on a volcanically active island. That's a perfect recipe for a very active and varied geology, the kind that would bring up ancient carbon. The errors are likely correlated. I think it's all just a bunch of wishful thinking - the interpretations they make are very tenuous. [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/arp.1912 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/arp.1912

stareatgoats 3y ago

This site is one of the building blocs that Graham Hancock uses to paint an alternate prehistory, involving a forgotten antediluvian civilization that was supposedly responsible for transmitting esoteric seeds of civilization to such disparate places as North America, Mesopotamia, Central America, Polynesia, Indonesia and more. He builds on older, fantastical stories about Atlantis, the lost continent of MU and others and has quite a following. He is most certainly wrong about most of it. But the notion that prehistory still holds a lot of amazing things waiting to be discovered, much of it buried deep in the oceans after the sea rise that occurred after the glaciers of the last ice age melted away just 10.000 years ago or so is most probably true.

detritus 3y ago
It'd not even be 'deep' in the oceans, more just a few tens of metres off-shore and down a bit. I'm no fan of Hancock, but I've long thought about how much of our history we're simply blind to because it's not right in front of our eyes.
- ricksunny 3y ago
  parent's comment seems to denigrate the site itself by associating it with someone named Hancock (who I have non idea who that it is). The article doesn't mention this individual at all. Two things can be true: • something (an object, a site, a finding) can be amazing • someone can have over-indexed on how amazing that thing is ahead of available evidence. Language matterd because this type of guilt-by-association induces a backlash on studying existing evidence and investing in further evidence-gathering (whether supportive or falsifying) efforts. Scientists are all too sensitive to stigmatised or even potentially-stigmatised (watchword: 'controversial') topics b/c their career fundability prospects from grants are at stake.
  - AStrangeMorrow 3y ago
    True. Just because someone uses some else research to push a bad narrative doesn't mean the initial research is bad. But in this case it fairly certainly is. Either by lack of scientific rigor, if not worse. Doesn't make much sense from an archeological standpoint, and there are concerns from the geological standpoint too it seems: Ex: https://www.reddit.com/r/geology/comments/17t81dg/question_regarding_geological_claims_in_recent/ https://www.reddit.com/r/geology/comments/17t81dg/question_r...

ush 3y ago

Maybe it was one single global Pyramid builder company building pyramids in different parts of the world. So a global pyramid scheme :-)

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
layer8 3y ago
Their computers were probably programmed in Pyramid Scheme.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

narrator 3y ago

I think one implication of there being ancient advanced societies before 10,000 years ago is that it shows that radical eco-primitivism will never be a viable strategy for dealing with resource depletion. This is because advanced society will always reemerge eventually. We either figure out a way to be sustainable in a high technology fashion now or we try it again in 50,000 years.

pavlov 3y ago
We’ve burned all the easily available fossil fuels though. So there won’t be another Industrial Revolution on the same blueprint as the one we experienced. The next one will be much more difficult. I read somewhere that the Earth now has so much more fungi that substantial new fossil fuel deposits won’t develop even over hundreds of millions of years. If that’s true, we were lucky bastards to have chanced on the only easily accessible massive fuel resources in this planet’s entire history.
- edgyquant 3y ago
  This is often repeated but is an opinion and nothing more. There are an untold number of ways to discover the use of electricity
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    There's a significant difference between discovering electricity and powering a civilization off it.
    - Qwertious 3y ago
      Is there, though? Perhaps discovering electricity (I.e. electric generator and motor) inevitably leads to industrialization. We don't know, since we invented both complex water-powered textile machines and steam engines well before we invented electricity, so we don't really know how a complex medieval society would have reacted to it. Also, if civilization collapses it's still fairly likely that a powerdrill will survive (not necessarily functioning, but intact enough that people will look at it and play with copper spirals). Actually, so will internal combustion engines probably, although that won't do much without the requisite metallurgy.

AStrangeMorrow 3y ago

Also this thread on the topic, debating the claim from a geological standpoint' https://www.reddit.com/r/geology/comments/17t81dg/question_regarding_geological_claims_in_recent/ https://www.reddit.com/r/geology/comments/17t81dg/question_r...

dang 3y ago

New evidence strongly suggests Indonesia's Gunung Padang is oldest known pyramid - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38186510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38186510 - Nov 2023 (40 comments) The pyramid of Gunung Padang began construction in the deep past, study claims - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38181200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38181200 - Nov 2023 (40 comments) Gunung Padang - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37760981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37760981 - Oct 2023 (24 comments)