Oh, I see....

Jimmy Corsetti @BrightInsight6
Ancient civilizations were FAR more advanced than they teach in school.
Something disastrous happened to destroy them, and cause us to forget.
The fact the woke left Media are viscerally attacking this topic and those discussing it should be a wake up call. *Everything they deny or attack = Truth*
7:22 PM · Apr 18, 2024  · 68.9K Views

What about the sleepy left and the yawning right? If they ignore the topic, does that also make it "true"?

Of course if something disastrous happens to a community, their natural human reaction is just to "forget" about it, and forget their past "greatness" before it happened. Yes?

Just look at the comments underneath... laugh, or cry? Should archaeologists feel some kind of obligation to engage with that kind of mindset? Would it do any good, or is it a waste of time? But then whose heritage is it, who has rights to ignore it being publicly misrepresented like this? What do professional ethics say about just turning a back to it?

Hancock and Dibble: Public Archaeology versus Amateurish Theorising and gaslighting

 

This evening I suspect I was not alone in spending four hours of my time watching a debate moderated (by Joe Rogan) between popular writer Graham Hancock and the archaeologist Flint Dibble about Hancock's theories presented in the popular 2022 Netflix series "Ancient Apocalypse" [henceforth AA]. Here's the synopsis of the series from the Wikipedia article on the series: 

Synopsis
In the series, Hancock argues that an advanced ice age civilization was destroyed in a cataclysm, but that its survivors introduced agriculture, monumental architecture and astronomy to hunter-gatherers around the world. He attempts to show how several ancient monuments are evidence of this, and claims that archaeologists are ignoring or covering up this alleged evidence. [...]

He builds the narrative around the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis, which attributes climate change between "12900 and 12800 years ago" at the end of the Pleistocene to a massive impact with something falling out of the sky (meteor, comet). 

Dibble had been one of the archaeologists critical of AA and like another one (who refused the invitation) was challenged by Hancock to a public recorded debate. Dibble has previously written very sensibly (among other things) on pseudoarchaeology and I was interested to see what happened. To be honest, I was expecting it to be a trainwreck, and it could so easily have been - Hancock was trying very hard. 

Dibble starts off really well with "what is archaeology" with quite a striking artefact to break the ice.. but more than that as it immediately addresses the "looks-like" approach of pseudoarchaeology (and indeed portable antiquities collection/antiquitism) and draws attention to CONTEXT. A really clever opener. 

The second slide (went over Hancock's head, it later transpired) showed survey data, making the point how much data we have - but also (and this is what GH missed) that archaeology is not just about excavating. Slide three mentions looting (big plus from me there....) and the fragility of the record. This leads into him giving a quick summary of GH's theories, and how he proposes to test them. His whole introductory talk (despite dumb interruptions from Rogan which we could have done without) was really well-prepared, succinct and to the point.

Gunung Padang comments

Over on Ben van Kerkwyk's "UnchartedX" YouTube channel is a video: "Is Gunung Padang a 27,000 Year Old Man-Made Pyramid? Analysis, Controversy and Response!". Here: 

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Posted on You Tube by UnchartedX ( 517K subscribers) Jan 28, 2024

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 I sent a comment 

@PortAntissues @PortAntissues  1 month ago

I appreciate that a lot of work of a number of people went into making this, but despite that, you have not really shown the evidence for the four phases of this site being as you say.

“Unit one”, OK, no problem. But “Unit two”... the film that you say is of exposed elements of this phase seems to show a stacked wall (and no evidence of “mortar” was visible), but as the film develops so does the suspicion that what is shown is merely part of the reveting of the terraces of the “Unit one” phase. Even if some of it goes under "Unit One" features, why is it simply not a levelling or foundation layer, rather than being a separate structure in its own right? If it is a structure, why did you not use the exposed portions and the cross sections provided by the geophysical examination to show its extent and characteristics? Was this not documented properly during the original work, which is why you cannot show it?

The question of documentation is vital. In the report you used to compile this, we see lots of attractive colourful pictures but not a single proper site plan. There is no plan showing where trenches were dug or boreholes drilled, I cannot find proper archaeological documentation in the report (not even a basic plan/section) of the several trenches dug, just schematic diagrams. As noted above, no documentation of the exposed bits of "Unit two"

I really cannot see “Unit three” as the artificial structure claimed. What you show in the section in the film [alongside a diagram that looks nothing like it] is mostly soil and weathered rock. Surely, it is simply a scree deposit. “Spheroidal weathering”, there are no embedded columns forming a “structure” in the bit (or diagram) you show, these are clearly just rocks that have weathered down from above (what geological layer was on top of the extruded – or rather Intruded - lava that formed the basalt, and where did that go? You’d expect bits of it to be left on top of the underlying rock but under the manmade construction built on it (Umm, like your “Units three and four”). If its a loose scree on a slope, that explains the "water loss" when unit three was drilled into, and echoes of "voids".

You utterly fail to shown ANY evidence that “Unit four” was “carefully sculpted”. How could you even determine that if it was all completely buried and all you have are a few boreholes? If it was of solid rock, then the soil samples must be from above it (Unit three?)- and if that was washed down from above, or contaminated by the water flowing into the borehole then that is a very uncertain context for those 14C samples.

If this really is a case (as the local archaeologists who were concerned by what they saw happening on this site possibly also thought) of an unprepared digger misinterpreting the layers (e.g., natural for artificial), and unable to produce the proper documentation of the fieldwork backing up the claims [extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, no?] then the work should have been stopped.

My comments are not archaeological suppression/ censorship/ bullying, or whatever, it is just applying simple logic to what you have presented here. This IS bad archaeology, and a pretty useless basis on which to draw any conclusions, even about what was actually done in the fieldwork project. IMO, there are so many flaws here that the journal’s academic editors must have been asleep when they accepted that article for publication.

I later added  

 @PortAntissues @PortAntissues 0 seconds ago The paper with the "dating evidence" that you cite has now been withdrawn as flawed by the editors of the journal: "Retraction: Geo‐Archaeological prospecting of Gunung Padang buried prehistoric pyramid in West Java, Indonesia". Archaeological Prospection. 18 March 2024. doi.org/10.1002/arp.1932

Joe Rogan and Jimmy Corsetti "Diagnose Archaeology"

Joe Rogan Experience -Daily-Updates 38.8K subscribers . 6,749 views Jan 20, 2023

"Graham Hancock Was Called A WHITE SUPREMACIST".

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Posted on You Tube by JRE-Daily-Updates, Jan 20, 2023

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Some gems here: 

"I'm sure you've seen the uh the original uh discussion that Graham had with uh Dr Robert shock when they brought the evidence of the water erosion to the Sphinx and then that archaeologists like laughing" (interjection: "Mark Lehner"), "but like not really laughing, "what evidence do we have an ancient civilization 11000 years ago?" Well now we have a lot fuckface, yeah, yeah, there's a lot you know there's there's Gobekli Tepe's massive and then there's another structure that's close to Gobekli Tepe, Karahan Tepe.... "

It seems these mouthy "home-grown experts" really do not understand archaeology is not about digging up things, but interpreting contexts:

"and we don't know how old stone is right? That's what's really wacky, when we talk about like carbon dating they're not carbon dating stone. They really don't know, so even when they they go back to ancient Egypt and they say say, "oh we we date the pyramids construction at 2500 BC". it's a fucking guess, that's what I think. It's a guess, it really is, it has to be a guess,  it really can't be anything other than a guess. They can measure organic matter,  they can measure stuff that's in between the stones but we have no idea when that was put there."

The true story of the fake "alien mummies" is wilder than actual aliens

All the greed, fraud, centuries of racism, and deteriorated llama skulls behind Mexico’s unboxed aliens (Aja Romano, 'The true story of the fake unboxed aliens is wilder than actual aliens', Vox Sep 16, 2023). The article discsses:

"two recently unboxed 1,000-year-old aliens, revealed to the world by a crew of conspiracists with a history of trying (and failing) to make 1,000-year-old aliens happen.

The Mexican Congress was holding a hearing on the existence of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), on Wednesday, September 13 [2023], when the alleged Peruvian aliens were hand-delivered in a dramatic coffin-like box. The box contained a pair of dusty figures with elongated skulls on hose-like necks. They had three fingers instead of the usual five, and bore a faint resemblance to Spielberg’s E.T.

Alas for truthers: These skeletons are not alien life forms. Instead, they are most likely a composite of pre-Columbian human remains and animal bones, all pieced together with some plaster.

But how they aren’t real is a story that’s frankly wilder than aliens.

In fact, these little guys appear to have been literally crowdfunded into existence in 2017 as part of an ongoing attempt to create the illusion that these hucksters are sitting on an ancient alien gold mine. And that’s just the tip of the alien scam iceberg. The full picture includes a long lineup of skeevy con men dedicated to passing themselves off as pseudoscientific “experts,” from media veterans to fake archaeologists and doctors with dubious degrees — all committed to insisting (even as a litany of real scientists line up to object) that their fake aliens are real.

[more here].

The Nazca Mini-mummies

 

Late 2016 — Initial Discovery
According to accounts associated with the “Alien Project,” huaqueros (grave robbers/looters) discovered unusual remains, including small humanoid bodies, in the Nazca region around late 2015 to late 2016. These finds were reportedly shared among private collectors and researchers before any major public announcement.

Earliest Publicised Appearance
In June 2017, a video and associated publicity were published showing a mummified body discovered near Nazca, Peru, with three-fingered hands and an elongated skull. This was disseminated widely by the streaming platform Gaia and replayed across conspiracy and UFO media sources.

In January (?) of that same year French researcher Thierry Jamin announced online the discovery of several unusual “mummified bodies and organs”, including small and anomalous specimenshad been found in southern Peru in early 2016, and began crowdfunding analyses of these specimens. He interpreted them as possible biological relics of unknown species. Early 2017 — First Public Reports and Media Mentions

In May 2017, some of these small mummies and anomalous remains were reported in Peruvian press, describing them as assembled from human and animal bones and covered with artificial materials — effectively publicising them for the first time in mainstream media (Korlaet 2021).

2017–2022 — Gradual Circulation in UFO/Paranormal Circles Throughout this period, images and claims about the small mummies appeared in online UFO and paranormal communities, often without rigorous scientific context. There were occasional debates over whether they originated near Nazca or Cusco, and whether they were biological or fabricated.

September 2023 (Mexican Congress Presentation) On 12–13 September 2023, two tiny mummified bodies were publicly exhibited before the Mexican Congress by journalist and UFO proponent Jaime Maussan. He claimed they were non-human and dated to ~1,000 years old. This event generated international media coverage and became the most widely publicised moment for these small Nazca mummies. [Update] 2024–2025 — Continued Media Attention and Scientific Scrutiny... After the 2023 congressional hearing, forensic and archaeological institutions (notably in Peru) analysed the specimens and publicly rejected claims that they were extraterrestrial, describing them instead as modified human and animal remains. This analysis further drove coverage and debate around the small mummies]. References Sanja Korlaet, 'NAZCA’S MUMMIES The Reality, Media Coverage and Scientific Proof', Jan 2, 2021.

Orrin Grey, 'Nazca Mummies: Proof of Ancient Aliens or Modern-Day Hoax?',Jul 18, 2024.

7000 year old Underwater Trackway discovered off Croatia's coast

          Diver explores underwater roadway (Image credit: Mate Perica)        

Jennifer Nalewicki, 'Remains of 7,000-year-old sunken stone road discovered off Croatia's coast', Live Science May 18, 2023

Archaeologists have discovered a late-Neolithic road submerged underwater off the coast of the Croatian island of Korčula.

The Neolithic structure once connected the island to an ancient, artificial landmass. Archaeologists announced the discovery of the "strange structures" in a May 6 post on Facebook, describing them as the remains of a roadway that are now submerged about 16 feet (5 meters) beneath the Adriatic Sea. The road consists of "carefully stacked stone plates" measuring roughly 13 feet (4 m) wide. The stone pavers had been buried by mud over the millennia. Archaeologists think the stone roadway was built by the Hvar, a lost maritime culture that resided in the area during the Neolithic period (6000 B.C. to circa 3000 B.C.). [...] "We [also] found late-Neolithic ornamented pottery, [a] stone axe, bone artifacts, flint knives and arrowheads," Mate Parica, an assistant professor in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Zadar in Croatia who took part in the excavation, told Live Science in an email. "[The] pottery findings help[ed] us to attribute this site to [the] Hvar culture."

The archaeologists think the roadway once linked Korčula with a nearby Hvar settlement, called Soline. The latter is also submerged but once resided on an artificial landmass, it was found in 2021 during a previous archaeological survey. By radiocarbon-dating wood found at the site, they determined that the settlement dates to roughly 4900 B.C., so nearly 7000yBP.