Ravi
Senior Member.
Came across a video about Egyptian artisans that try to keep the crafts alive. Check this part (t=1852), about stone vases..
Source: https://youtu.be/8e0G51TYHy8?t=1852
Source: https://youtu.be/8e0G51TYHy8?t=1852
Claim: Ancient Cultures inherited Structures and Artefacts from Pre-Historic Lost Civilizations with Advanced Manufacturing Capabilities
- Thread starter SkepticSteve
- Start date
DavidB66
Senior Member
On the subject of modern fakes of ancient artifacts (mentioned in some earlier posts) this is a recognised problem. It is generally accepted that some of the most famous pre-Columbian artifacts - the 'crystal skulls' of Mexico - including one in the British Museum, are 19th or 20th century fakes. It has even been claimed that the Egyptian 'bust of Nefertiti' (shown in a post above) was faked or heavily restored by its 'excavators', though this is hotly disputed.
But there is also good evidence that artifacts which might seem beyond what could be achieved with ancient technology are in fact genuine. An example would be the giant statues of Easter Island. Some people have argued that these must have been created by a more advanced civilisation, or even by aliens, but the evidence of unfinished statues, still only partly cut out of the island's bedrock, shows that they were produced by the hard work of the inhabitants.
But there is also good evidence that artifacts which might seem beyond what could be achieved with ancient technology are in fact genuine. An example would be the giant statues of Easter Island. Some people have argued that these must have been created by a more advanced civilisation, or even by aliens, but the evidence of unfinished statues, still only partly cut out of the island's bedrock, shows that they were produced by the hard work of the inhabitants.
FatPhil
Senior Member.
Fascinating, thank you! One thing that surprises me is that he doesn't have a fixed mount for his drill and his larger pieces - he just embeds them in the ground, and holds the drill by hand. Of course, that was a deliberately low precision large piece, perhaps he has a more refined setup for the more delicate pieces, but still, if the drill was mounted in a frame it would obviously be less physical effort - he'd only need to worry about applying the axial turning force and some downwards, and not have to worry about the drilling axis itself being kept upright. Maybe he's from a village of stoneworkers, and skilled carpenters, and ergonomics consultants, are hard to come by!
Hevach
Senior Member.
Likewise give a 17th Century artisan that shop and watch their quality take a nosedive, too.
There's opposing sayings about a hand only being as good as the tool it holds and a tool only being as good as the hand that holds it, but the truth is in the skill that connects hand and tool.
Generally speaking quality of work has been pretty consistent through history. Technological advancement has periodically introduced new materials and has increased the amount of work one person can do. But you don't see quality improve the same way. A tale a sword from the 1500's and compare it to a Roman sword and the quality of the workmanship isn't the difference. The newer sword is made of stronger metal but the older one is still a work of equal quality. And if you swap those smiths' places, neither would be able to match the quality of the other.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Just to start let's get who the host is:
https://jermwarfare.com/conversations/ben-van-kirkwykBen Van Kerkwyk is a researcher and creator of UnchartedX, a website and YouTube channel looking into ancient mysteries, presenting new ideas about humanity’s past.
He has been travelling the world for decades, filming ancient sites and interviewing leading historians, which has taken him on a journey of suspicion surrounding established history. (The establishment must always be viewed with a sceptical eye. Just like “trusting the science” is a bad move, so is “trusting the history”.)
Next, at 12:29 Mr. van Kerkyk attempts to address the elephant in the room, namely that they have no idea where this vase came from. He claims it's pre-dynastic but says there is no provenance. Nevertheless, he's confident that it is in fact a pre-dynastic vase. Earlier in the video he and a guy named A. Young both said that they have been to enough museums to know precision made artifacts just by sight, so no need to bring in an Egyptologist or archeologist to help identify this vase. In light of his bio above, said experts are not to be trusted anyway.
After a while I gave up, the thing is an hour long. Van Kerkwyk is clearly a Hancock acolyte that believes in an Atlantis like super civilization that was completely wiped out by a comet impact that ushered in the Younger Dryas. Despite ANY AND ALL physical evidence of this high-tech people being wiped out and completely vanishing from the Archeological record they managed to teach lots of ancient people how to use their now lost technology, while still leaving no trace of said technology.
At best these guys have a really cool vase that some ancient craftsman managed to create, and they took a lot of measurements of it. It's very impressive, but so are the Pyramids. At worst they have modernish fake, that they took a lot of measurements of.
What they do not have is any physical evidence of a pre-ancient civilization or Atlantis.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Came across a video about Egyptian artisans that try to keep the crafts alive. Check this part (t=1852), about stone vases..
Source: https://youtu.be/8e0G51TYHy8?t=1852
Just saying, shout out to @Ravi for this heads up. Watched this one last night and the Mrs. and I are into another episode tonight. Very interesting and giving the amount of crap that is on TV/YouTube very informative.
Ravi
Senior Member.
Thanks!
My favorite channels, are https://www.youtube.com/@WorldofAntiquity and another good one is https://www.youtube.com/@AncientArchitects. Both are 100% science backed and no chance for woo woo woooo
Ravi
Senior Member.
Ben, from UnchartedX has made a new video on the subject, perhaps good to include it in this thread. As promised, he included the STL format measurements on the vase on his website, which I copy here:
Predynastic Vase Scan STL
I wish dearly I still had access to SpatialAnalyzer..
Source: https://youtu.be/PrhFnai2TGs
Predynastic Vase Scan STL
I wish dearly I still had access to SpatialAnalyzer..
Source: https://youtu.be/PrhFnai2TGs
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Saw this article today about how Indigenous people of the American Southwest might have moved big logs. It just helps to reenforce that as we live in a world of heavy equipment, climbing cranes, mass transportation and what not, we may not conceive of simple ways of doing things that our ancestors did.
Here's the short YouTube video that shows the guys trying the system out:
Source: https://youtu.be/jVhOvuzUkI0
I'm not saying I want to move logs hundreds of miles that way if a logging truck can do it for me, but where there's a will there's a way.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/tech...ing-giant-logs-to-their-foreheads/ar-AA17TXVAThe ancestral Puebloans that called Chaco Canyon home a millennium ago used more than 200,000 pieces of timber to construct their buildings, with weights estimated between 185 and 605 pounds per log. But the area around Chaco Canyon is a dry, arid climate that likely didn’t have many high-quality, usable trees. And indeed, in 2001, tree-ring experts at the University of Arizona used chemical analyses to pinpoint that the wood was sourced from mountain ranges up to 46 miles away. But that finding left them with even more questions.
Now a new study published on February 22 in the Journal of Archaeological Science presents a reasonable explanation: The Puebloans used a simple piece of fabric looped around their heads.
A tumpline refers to a strap attached on both ends to a sack of equipment like a basket or a backpack. But instead of carrying it over their shoulders, the ancient log bearers would have placed it on their heads, just behind the hairline. Then, by leaning forward, the carriers distributed the weight of their cargo down the neck and spine. Anthropologists know that pre-Columbian cultures in America used tumplines woven from plant fibers to transport heavy loads, but up until recently, had never tested the method on the Chaco Canyon timbers.
Here's the short YouTube video that shows the guys trying the system out:
Source: https://youtu.be/jVhOvuzUkI0
I'm not saying I want to move logs hundreds of miles that way if a logging truck can do it for me, but where there's a will there's a way.
A tumpline such as they are describing would likely never be found by archaeologists, or be recognized for what it was. Its cloth would have been used for other purposes if it became too worn to carry a log. It's just a piece of cloth. A tumpline for moving logs would probably be indistinguishable from one used to carry a heavy basket on your back in any case.
banditsat12oclock
Member
A medieval windmill is a machine made almost entirely from wood. Since they've fallen out of use, few remnants remain.
(CC BY-SA, by Arto J)
I second this.
Isn't there a definitional problem also in that there's a lack of clarity around what tools and techniques an "advanced" ancient civilization might have had? I also don't think it's fair to deride precision granite stone-working as primitive. People today still routinely live in houses made of baked bricks stuck together with mortar, but no one would call them primitive dwellings.
As another example, the Antikythera mechanism is presumably millennia younger than any of these structures, but who built it, how, where are the tools, where are the precursors designs, etc. One could argue that that seems to be a similar case of a mysterious object with no known antecedents, with perhaps ancient master guilds passing on knowledge by word of mouth and the training of apprentices until war or famine or pestilence struck and the knowledge was lost.
Isn't there even a hint of truth to the idea that these structures are orders of magnitude bigger and more accurate than anything before or for millennia afterwards, and that in itself is peculiar? The use of tubular drills, for example, seems to have been widespread in Egypt, but then vanished until the industrial revolution brought them back into use.
Likewise, what global population existed during the suggested time period and where was it based? The lack of evidence isn't, perhaps, that hard to understand if 95% of a few million people lived on the coastline of a world that's been submerged at a depth of several hundred metres for 9k to 10k years.
Ann K
Senior Member.
Musing:
The claim for this thread is "Ancient cultures inherited structures and artifacts from prehistoric lost civilizations with advanced manufacturing capabilities. Yet none of the bolded terms have been defined. The term "lost" might well be applied to our own great-grandparents' way of life, as relatively few urban dwellers today could confidently butcher a hog and make soap from its rendered fat, for example. More recently I remember my daughter bringing home one boyfriend in her youth that was floored when faced with a phone with a rotary dial.
"Ancient" might also be synonymous with "prehistoric". I think we forget that what we call the Stone Age has been itself divided by archaeologists into major periods, each of which lasted many thousands of years ...and which transitioned from one to another. The people building amazing structures had many millennia of practice and refinement of technique behind them. Civilizations DO that: they learn from what their parents and grandparents did, and bit by bit they get better at it.
I think it's likely that their own ancestors were the ones who honed their "advanced" technology and passed it on to their descendants. And when no longer used, that method is "lost". As an example (paraphrasing a book whose title I no longer recall), Pacific islanders used to navigate by stars, wave patterns, winds, etc, and a group would sometimes travel a thousand miles to buy cigarettes. But then along came WWII, and port controls and passport requirements put an end to that, then the skill died because it could no longer be used. History (and presumably prehistory) is full of disruptive events: wars, famines, plagues, sea level rise, natural disasters, and changes in the religious observances of the monarchs are some: see Henry VIII and the Pharaohs of Egypt for examples of the last. And all it would take is a generation growing up without having those skills taught to them for a period in civilization to be "lost".
The claim for this thread is "Ancient cultures inherited structures and artifacts from prehistoric lost civilizations with advanced manufacturing capabilities. Yet none of the bolded terms have been defined. The term "lost" might well be applied to our own great-grandparents' way of life, as relatively few urban dwellers today could confidently butcher a hog and make soap from its rendered fat, for example. More recently I remember my daughter bringing home one boyfriend in her youth that was floored when faced with a phone with a rotary dial.
"Ancient" might also be synonymous with "prehistoric". I think we forget that what we call the Stone Age has been itself divided by archaeologists into major periods, each of which lasted many thousands of years ...and which transitioned from one to another. The people building amazing structures had many millennia of practice and refinement of technique behind them. Civilizations DO that: they learn from what their parents and grandparents did, and bit by bit they get better at it.
I think it's likely that their own ancestors were the ones who honed their "advanced" technology and passed it on to their descendants. And when no longer used, that method is "lost". As an example (paraphrasing a book whose title I no longer recall), Pacific islanders used to navigate by stars, wave patterns, winds, etc, and a group would sometimes travel a thousand miles to buy cigarettes. But then along came WWII, and port controls and passport requirements put an end to that, then the skill died because it could no longer be used. History (and presumably prehistory) is full of disruptive events: wars, famines, plagues, sea level rise, natural disasters, and changes in the religious observances of the monarchs are some: see Henry VIII and the Pharaohs of Egypt for examples of the last. And all it would take is a generation growing up without having those skills taught to them for a period in civilization to be "lost".
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FatPhil
Senior Member.
Oi! Team Limestone thinks that bricks are way too modern.
RTM
Active Member
It doesn’t make much sense that a culture/civilization had some advanced technology/techniques but couldn’t notice a gradual rise in sea levels so they could move inland and preserve the technology.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Indeed. I've always asked, exactly "what advanced technology" was passed to the "primitives" and what did they accomplish with it?
The Atlantis crowd, (and for brevity's sake I'm just going to use the term Atlantis because that's basically what they're promoting even if they don't always use the name), always point out the worlds Pyramids, Gobekli Tepe, Tiwanaku, Stonehenge and other grand building projects as evidence of the Atlanteans passing on "advanced technology" so the primitives could construct these monuments.
But what did a technologically advanced society pass on that would be useful to build monuments?
The use of concrete? Nope.
The use of structural steel?
Steam powered equipment?
Laser leveling?
Earth moving equipment?
Cranes?
Magical cutting crystals and anti-gravity devices?
No, it seems when these advanced Atlanteans showed up at various spots around the world, they told the local dunces living there:
"Hey, you know, if you guys chisel out some blocks, you can then stack them on top of each other to make a mound. If you get enough people together to do this, you can make a big mound.
And here's a secret, since you're just going to be piling theses blocks up and not connecting them together in any way, make each level a little smaller than the one below it so you end up with a mountain shaped mound.
You're welcome. We could have shown you our really cool machines and lasers, but we lost all that shit when the comet hit, so you're just going to have to make do with the secret advanced technology of piling up blocks."
Prety much what the "primitives" could have done without the help of people from Atlantis.
deirdre
Senior Member.
maybe there is a galactic directive to not interfere with developing species, but one alien architect just couldn't STAND it (the unlevel rocks) and interfered. He probably has an official reprimand in his file and maybe even got fired.
Mendel
Senior Member.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_sea_level
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Holocene_sea_level_rise
The problem with the idea of a culture existing 10,000 years ago having passed technology to the Egyptians is that Egypt really only took off 3150 bc, aka 5000 years ago: the idea of technology making it across those prehistoric 5000 years through cuneiform or hieroglyphs that have since been lost feels implausible when that same technology failed to be preserved through the 5000 years that followed.
However, in theory the idea is sound: sea level rise could force a social change that changes technological traditions: not because the tools get flooded and the artisans drown (which might have happened if the Mediterranean Ses was a dry basin that flooded when the Atlantic Ocean topped the Gibraltar end), but because the wealth that supported them is no longer there.
Article: Around 7,600 years ago, the emergence of agricultural settlements in Southeastern Europe and subsequent progress of civilization suddenly came to a standstill. This was most likely caused by an abrupt sea level rise in the northern Aegean Sea. Researchers of the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, the Goethe University in Frankfurt and the University of Toronto have now detected evidence of this oceanographic event and an earlier sudden sea-level rise in the fossils of tiny calcifying marine algae preserved in seafloor sediments in the Aegean Sea.
"Approximately 7,600 years ago, the sea level must have risen abruptly in the Mediterranean regions bordering Southeastern Europe. The northern Aegean, the Marmara Sea and the Black Sea recorded an increase of more than one meter. This led to the flooding of low-lying coastal areas that would have been ideal areas for settlement," says lead author Professor Dr. Jens Herrle of the German Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre and Goethe University.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Sure, but I think the problem with that is a 5 axis CNC machine doesn't exist in a void. To arrive at a CNC there is a whole host of antecedent technologies and yet the claim is that ALL of it was wiped out? Completely? There would be power generation and distribution, metallurgical works, an electronics industry, computers and so on. ALL of this stuff was kept within a few miles of the ocean for centuries and is all waiting to be found off the coast?
Even if it's a silly movie, I think The Road Warrior is an illustrative story. Recall that the main plot is that in some sort of post catastrophic apocalyptical world Mad Max stumbles upon a settlement of survivors. They, and their adversaries still know how to cobble together vehicles. More importantly the "good guys" have managed to create a half-assed refinery to make the needed fuel. There are remnants of the pre-catastrophe technology still around. It doesn't all disappear completely.
Some specific technologies can be "lost" or forgotten. Roman polzitana concrete is a great example. In the political upheaval as the western Roman empire faded, how to make and use the concrete was "lost". But there was plenty of other technologies from Rome that carried on into the Middle Ages. Post Wester Rome, the people of Europe were still building churches and castles, writing in Latin, using Roman roads and so on.
I've read Graham Hancock claims that his Atlantean culture that was wipe out by the comet was similar to western Europe/US of the late 19th century. So, were talking steam ships, railroads, the Eiffel tower, metal bridges, foundries, glass works, the beginning of electrical usage and so on. ALL of it wiped out without a trace, except for some vases and big piles of blocks.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Agreed. But, the culture described in the article is 7,600 years ago:
So, somewhat contemporaneous with pre-dynastic Egypt or later than the builders of Gobekli Tepe. They're not the pre-Younger Dryas super civilization that supposedly had steam locomotives and CNC cutters.
More importantly as the article points out that:
Meaning, despite a catastrophe, they are aware of the societies technology level and the limits reached, unlike the Atlantean technology, for which there is no evidence at all.
Because your making sense here, many Alt history types are hell bent on redating the creation of many of the monuments. Hancock and others have claimed the Sphinx at least and likely the Pyramids of Giza date back to 10,500 YA. He makes a similar claim for Tiwanaku. Gobekli Tepe already dates close to that time. I don't know how they handle Mesoamerican structures.
They paint themselves into a corner when all the actual times are looked at. Let's assume an Atlantean culture that was the equivalent of industrialized 19th century Europe was completely wiped out prior to 10,500 years ago. The few individuals that survived then spend roughly 5000 years roaming around trying to get by as best they could.
As there is no evidence of 19th century technology in the archeological record for the ensuing 5000 years, we can presume that over time they forgot or were unable to replicate it. So, when they eventually wondered into Sumur and Egypt or the shores of Lake Titicaca, they had no technology to share. At best they have some mythological stories passed down for thousands of years.
If, on the other hand, all the worlds' monuments were built around 10,500 years ago when the technology was available, then they used 19th century technology to pile up blocks. And all that technology disappeared, leaving only the piles of blocks.
banditsat12oclock
Member
I'm never going to accept that ancient people had steamships and the telegraph, but are we so sure there wasn't a cataclysm that could account for a sudden loss of general entry-level civilization (maths, literacy, stone working, basic navigation, celestial observation, shipbuilding, etc)? There is also real evidence of some kind of meteor impact over the northern ice cap and a big rush of water into the Atlantic?
That aside, though, hasn't civilisational collapse happened over and over anyway, with or without some major apocalypse being the cause?
The Babylonians. The Maya. The Olmecs. The Minoans. The Easter Islanders. Greenland Norse. Angkor Wat. Egypt. Even ignoring all claims about supposed precursor civilisations, the Egyptians themselves were highly civilised for millennia, yet they effectively disappeared, and by the time the Victorians came on the scene, no one had read a hieroglyph in several millennia and the sphinx was up to its neck in sand again.
It's really not that hard to believe, I feel, that an ancient "Athens" of 100k people could have existed somewhere now underwater, risen to a certain level of sophistication, and been wiped out for who knows what reason, leaving only telltale traces through survivors' tales.
I'm not saying it's true, I'm not saying a secret cult transmitted information across 5 millennia without somehow failing to rise to the same level, but I think the general idea of some archaic group having risen and fallen isn't as impossible or unbelievable as some would make out.
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Ann K
Senior Member.
I was just watching a program last night about Doggerland, the now underwater region between Britain and mainland Europe. It was an area the size of Germany that was gradually disappearing as the glaciers melted and the waters rose, but then, 8000 years ago, experienced a massive tsunami due to a sub oceanic landslip off Norway known as the Storegga slide. We have seen the huge destruction caused by two major tsunamis in this century alone, and it seems likely to me that in a day before world-wide communication, such an event would, literally, wipe out some cultures to the point that we still have yet to identify them.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Yeah, but a city of 100K people is going to require a few things, especially an adequate food supply. Prior to agriculture, most humans lived in Hunter-gatherer societies, usually not much bigger than 100 or so people:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/hunter-gathererSocial groups are necessarily small, because only a limited number of people can congregate together without quickly exhausting the food resources of a locality. Such groups typically comprise either extended family units or a number of related families collected together in a band. An individual band is generally small in number, typically with no more than 30 individuals if moving on foot, or perhaps 100 in a group with horses or other means of transport.
Jarrod Dimond's book Guns, Germs and Steel has a lot of issues, but he is fairly accurate in pointing out that the of the worlds main crops: wheat, barley, rice and corn (maize) as well as the main domesticated animals: goats, sheep, horse, cow and pig, most of them are from centeral Asia, with rice from south east Asia. Corn is the outlier.
Most of the Asian crops were domesticated somewhere between 8,000 and 13,000 years ago. That' wheat in 9600BC (11,600 Before Present or Years Ago, I hate the way these dating systems are constantly interchanged) and rice in 11,500BC-6,200BC:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WheatArchaeological analysis of wild emmer indicates that it was first cultivated in the southern Levant, with finds dating back as far as 9600 BC.[18][19] Genetic analysis of wild einkorn wheat suggests that it was first grown in the Karacadaǧ Mountains in southeastern Turkey. Dated archaeological remains of einkorn wheat in settlement sites near this region, including those at Abu Hureyra in Syria, suggest the domestication of einkorn near the Karacadaǧ Mountains.[20] With the anomalous exception of two grains from Iraq ed-Dubb, the earliest carbon-14 date for einkorn wheat remains at Abu Hureyra is 7800 to 7500 years BC.[21]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RiceThe current scientific consensus, based on archaeological and linguistic evidence, is that Oryza sativa rice was first domesticated in the Yangtze River basin in China 13,500 to 8,200 years ago.[31][32][33][34]
Corn, or maize, in the Americas was a bit later at ~7000BC, or 9000 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MaizeAn 2002 study by Matsuoka et al.. has demonstrated that, rather than the multiple independent domestications model, all maize arose from a single domestication in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago. The study also demonstrated that the oldest surviving maize types are those of the Mexican highlands. Later, maize spread from this region over the Americas along two major paths. This is consistent with a model based on the archaeological record suggesting that maize diversified in the highlands of Mexico before spreading to the lowlands.[15][16]
Agriculture creates food surpluses, though not necessarily healthier food, and gives rise to more permeant settlements, and this is what the archeological record supports. The earliest known permeant type settlements, or what we would think of as towns or cities are where wheat was domesticated with Jerricho and Catalhoyuk:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JerichoJericho has evidence of settlement dating back to 10,000 BCE.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/pl...nt-city-is-considered-the-oldest-in-the-worldBut the earliest region for urbanization was the Middle East, with ancient Mesopotamia. About 10,000 years ago, soon after farming began there, the site of Jericho in present-day West Bank featured massive stone walls, enclosing a settlement of an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 residents. By 9,000 years ago, Çatalhöyük, located in present-day Turkey, likely held several thousand people in houses made of mud brick and plaster.
In the Americas, Caral is considered one of the oldest city like places, and it dates a little latter as does the domestication of corn:
The Caral culture developed between 3000 and 1800 B.C (Late Archaic and Lower Formative periods). In America, it is the oldest of the pre-Hispanic civilizations, developing 1,500 years earlier than the Olmec civilization, the first Mesoamerican complex society.[4]
The date of 2627 BC for Caral is based on the carbon dating of reed and woven carrying bags that were found in situ. These bags were used to carry the stones for the construction of the temples. The material is an excellent candidate for high precision dating. The site may date even earlier, however, as samples from the oldest parts of the excavation have yet to be dated.[12]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CaralCaral had a population of approximately 3,000 people. However, 19 other sites in the area (posted at Caral), allow for a possible total population of 20,000 people sharing the same culture in the Supe Valley.
Note we're talking about settlements of several thousand people, not many 10s of thousands. Not that a city is completely needed, Gobekli Tepe has been dated to around 9000BC or 11,000 years ago:
The original director of excavations, Klaus Schmidt, thought the site was purely ritualistic and was constructed by hunter-gathers that would come together periodically to build and use the site:Radiocarbon dating of charcoal found in the four enclosures currently being excavated show that Layer III dates back to approximately 9990 to 9250 BCE, with charcoal samples from Enclosure D appearing to be slightly older than Enclosures C and A
Others are not so sure, and think people may have lived there:Schmidt believed firmly that Göbekli Tepe is the first known religious site.[5] He believed that the resources surrounding the site could not support a community of hunter-gatherers. He also believed that the reliefs present on the limestone pillars were too ornate and that the columns were too massive for a mere residential use. Additionally, at present, there is no source of water close to the site, which would be an impediment to the existence of a permanent residential community. Schmidt also claims that the structures had no roofs, so they would not be habitable.
http://www.fakearchaeology.wiki/index.php/Göbekli_TepeMany of Schmidt's claims regarding the cult purpose of Göbekli Tepe can be addressed with the preliminary nature of the excavations. According to Schmidt himself, the site is 5% excavated. This leaves massive room for future findings that could explain the true purpose of the site, religious or otherwise.
As noted in Banning's paper entitled "So Fair a House: Göbekli Tepe and the Identification of Temples in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Near East," Banning points out that there are many examples of ritual structures in relatively mundane locations, like habitations.[8] Additionally, in response to the claim that the enclosures could not have been habitable because they did not have roofs, Banning points out that the columns could have structural purpose in supporting a roof. The columns in the middle of the enclosures of Layer III are typically taller than those on the border of the structures.[8] Further analysis of the drainage patterns and weathering of the limestone tiled floors of the structures could also provide answers as to the presence or absence of roofs in the enclosures.[8]
Finally, there is still question as to where the debris that filled the site originated. Schmidt claims that the debris did not originate from Göbekli Tepe, although there are no contemporary sites within 14 km.[8] Also, the amount of debris required to fill the site would require massive amounts of time in transporting the debris from another site. Banning asserts that it is more likely that the debris came from either a small group of permanent inhabitants at the site that was frequented by visitors, or that the site was home to a large residential population that produced the debris themselves.[8] Given the effort required to procure the debris from the closest site, it is most likely that the debris was produced at Göbekli Tepe itself.
Either way, it's a cool site and its construction, even if done by Hunter-gatherer groups, is at the dawn of agriculture and settlements.
All that to say, if a society is getting together to use their existing technology or creating new ones to build monuments, it's likely there is some sort of food surplus going on and that likely means agriculture.
Now there is an exception for a coastal group, if they live in a very productive area. They could become settled without agriculture:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/hunter-gathererPermanent villages or towns are generally possible only where food supplies are unusually abundant and reliable; the numerous rivers and streams of the Pacific Northwest, for instance, allowed Native Americans access to two unusually plentiful wild resources—acorns and fish, especially salmon—that supported the construction of large permanent villages and enabled the people to reach higher population densities than if they had relied upon terrestrial mammals for the bulk of their subsistence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gathererSome hunter-gatherer cultures, such as the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and the Yokuts, lived in particularly rich environments that allowed them to be sedentary or semi-sedentary. Amongst the earliest example of permanent settlements is the Osipovka culture (14–10.3 thousand years ago),[17] which lived in a fish-rich environment that allowed them to be able to stay at the same place all year.[18] One group, the Chumash, had the highest recorded population density of any known hunter and gatherer society with an estimated 21.6 persons per square mile.[19]
I don't think we're getting anywhere near 100k people, but it supports yours's and Mendel's notion that it's plausible a pre-agriculture coastal society could have become settled and may have developed some technologies that were lost when sea levels rose. But I think we're talking about things like spearpoints, fishing tools, maybe certain kinds of boats and things like that. Again, like people of the Middle Ages forgetting how to use Roman concrete.
That is not what the Atlantis crowd is talking about. Like I said, Hancock has made mention of industrial '19th century Europe, and that's pretty tame compared to the average Alt-Arch Atlantis enthusiast.
Mendel
Senior Member.
Article: Despite the widespread modern belief that the Library of Alexandria was burned once and cataclysmically destroyed, the Library actually declined gradually over the course of several centuries.
We know of this because another literate empire, Rome, existed at the time. If you had a literate civilisation that stood on its own, it might be hard to find, especially if it's under the sea now.
That said, "hard to find" does not mean it existed. Plenty of legends are not based on anything real, or have been heavily distorted in the telling.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
I used to think that way, but years of reading and my Archeologist son have encouraged me to think different. To start the word "civilization" can be problematic. It denotes "societal progress" and thus the idea that one group of people is "more advanced" than another. I think the argument can be made that different groups have technology, and that technology can evolve and change building on itself, so technology can progress. But technology is only as good as the society it serves. People depended on hunting for food, don't need to know how to erect stone monuments, they need to know how to make really good spear/arrow points.
So, instead of thinking of people as being part of a civilization, they are part of a society, and those societies don't necessarily collapse. They change, evolve, move on or get absorbed into other societies, though political structures may come and go.
The Mayan didn't collapse. Various Mayan groups had periods of political dominance over other Mayan groups resulting in warfare and conflict. The Toltecs from Central Mexico came in and had a period of influence on different Mayan groups. Insecsnt warfare possibly combined with a drought lead to the abandonment of many Mayan cities. But, by the time the Spanish showed up, there were still viable Mayan polities:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_YucatánThe Spanish conquest of Yucatán was the campaign undertaken by the Spanish conquistadores against the Late Postclassic Maya states and polities in the Yucatán Peninsula, a vast limestone plain covering south-eastern Mexico, northern Guatemala, and all of Belize.
The Mayan were eventually absorbed into and melded with the modern Mexican state and the Mayan people and language, their society, is still around today. Pertinent to this thread, the modern Maya may not remember how their ancestors built pyramids or track the stars, but I went fishing with a Mayan guide that taught ancient jungle survival skills.
Egypt is similar. It flourished for thousands of years. There was a period when the Semitic Hyksos people took over and were then driving out. Eventually Alaxander and his Macedonian army conquered Egypt. But after Alexander's death, his general, Ptolemy set himself up as pharaoh and created a hybrid Hellenistic-Egyptian dynasty. Cleopatra 17, was the last of the Ptolemaic rulers as Egypt became fully under the control of Rome. Then it became Byzantine, then Islamic then Napolean followed by the Brits, but it's still Egypt. did they lose the ability to read hieroglyphics along the line? Sure. Did Egypt collapse? Not so sure.
The term "disappear" needs to be used with care. When using the phrase to describe Egypt for example, dynasties and invaders came and went, but every year for the last 5000+ years farmers along the banks of the Nile have planted and harvested crops, there were always people there. The people who built Gobekli Tepe disappeared, as in gone, with no living descendants we know of.
Ann K
Senior Member.
I read an interesting non-fiction book (can't remember the author) but it was written by a woman who left England for Egypt a century or so ago. She commented on the annual rebuilding of the levees after the Nile floods. Each village was given a quota of the number of men to be sent to do the work, and each man brought his own rations for several weeks and came to fix the levees. She describes it as somewhat of a good-natured competitive event between the various gangs. I read that and thought that the building of pyramids might well have been done in that manner, each village sending a certain number of workers for a period of time, then all of them going home to tend their own farms.
