British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on Stonehenge was wrong • Hacker News Board

Re: British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on Stonehenge was wrong

#51

Post by tlb » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #34

l0b0 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upvoted, but citation needed for "the fabrications are usually discovered." Basically the state of any research that nobody has tried to replicate yet is unknown.

It's also a logical impossibility to really determine whether "fabrications are usually discovered" or not. We can only know about fabrications after they have been discovered -- so there could be 2x or even 10x as much that we don't know about and count among the "non fabricated" work.

It's not impossible. We know how many fabrications are discovered. You can take a random sample of papers and analyze them in depth to estimate the number of papers that are fabricated.

Re: British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on Stonehenge was wrong

#52

Post by tlb » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 3:50 PM UTC

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #13

>>> Such a monumental procession would have been akin to transporting the space shuttle Endeavor in a parade, for all to see and celebrate, the archaeologists said. This is another one of those "sounds good" ideas that the article is complaining about. The total population of the UK would have varied from 40,000 lower bound to 200k in this period (see below - figures really hard to find) Basically that's empty. It's…

You can never have all the people pushing the rock. Women, children, and the elderly wouldn't. And you need a large supply chain to feed and shelter the rock pushers along the route.

As a benchmark, 31% of Germany's population were in uniform in WWII. That's probably the greatest fraction a society can devote to a project.

Re: British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on Stonehenge was wrong

#53

Post by mkohlmyr » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 3:53 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #47

nickonline wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YBB YBP? This is some pretty incredible jargon is this widely used, I've never seen it before and needed to look it up. Is it really that hard to say 2,500 years ago?

It starts to get cumbersome when you use it multiple times in a paragraph. The problem is really the BC/AD (starting the clock 2018 years ago) is clunky. It's pretty widely used in the context of history these days, mostly because it's common to look at long stretches of time. It's really the easiest system once you know the acronym. Here... Herodotus is a 5th century BC historian, a favourite among the 13th century…

While you may think BC/AD is clunky, having a static reference point in the past obviously has its advantages. 200BC will forever correctly and uniquely reference the same year, 2218 YBP not so much, as it depends on year of writing (which is fine for a live interaction, but less handy for written and archived content).

Re: British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on Stonehenge was wrong

#54

Post by dalbasal » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 3:59 PM UTC

brownbat wrote: post #28

dalbasal wrote: post #15

A question that really interests me about Stonehenge, Gobleki Teppeh and other such mysterious monumental sites is " how many people did this? " When we (now, and in the past) look at ancient construction projects, we instinctively tend to imagine fairly "brute force" construction methods. Basically, the way things are done now but with people powered trucks, cranes and such. Think of all those depictions of many peo…

Agreed, all those options are fascinating possibilities in their own way. A few months ago lidar revealed a lost Purépecha city that had more buildings than Manhattan. The Purépecha were contemporaries of the Aztecs that most people have never even heard of. Sometimes archaeology makes me feel about humanity the same way a Randall feels about dinosaurs--we know so much and yet it's almost nothing: https://xkcd.com/17…

That xkcd is the perfect analogy. I hope that archeologists diligently "debunking earlier works" to more accurately place the quarries will lead to a clue about webs.

Re: British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on Stonehenge was wrong

#55

Post by dalbasal » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 4:08 PM UTC

mkohlmyr wrote: post #53

dalbasal wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It starts to get cumbersome when you use it multiple times in a paragraph. The problem is really the BC/AD (starting the clock 2018 years ago) is clunky. It's pretty widely used in the context of history these days, mostly because it's common to look at long stretches of time. It's really the easiest system once you know the acronym. Here... Herodotus is a 5th century BC historian, a favourite among the 13th century…

While you may think BC/AD is clunky, having a static reference point in the past obviously has its advantages. 200BC will forever correctly and uniquely reference the same year, 2218 YBP not so much, as it depends on year of writing (which is fine for a live interaction, but less handy for written and archived content).

Yup. I can live with 2 systems.

I like the holocene calendar idea, personally. I can live with AD, but kind of dislike the non-universalism of using a specific church's calendar.

Re: British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on Stonehenge was wrong

#56

Post by nonbel » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 4:15 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #38

coldtea wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With stonehenge in 5,000 ypb britain, there are thought to be far fewer people. Well, it's also a much smaller scale project compared to a pyramid. > So either, (1) "civilised" society was much more common historically and ancient in origin (2) There were "pre-civilised" ways of organising very large numbers of people. Or (3), they had very clever building techniques that did not require many people. I think (1) is…

Yes, definitely much smaller scale. Still, the unit of work is similar (massive stone cut, moved and placed). If it takes a lot of people, that implies a lot of people coordinating at that time an place. In a sense, it gives us a minimal level of societal complexity that must have existed. Since britain didn't seem to have towns or cities, the nature of this complexity would be pre-civilised in the literal civil=city…

You don't have to move huge stones. Its possible to cast limestone in place, like concrete. I read/watched some stuff about this guy not too long ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Davidovits

He claims he sent samples of his cast limestone to geologists and they couldnt tell the difference. Overall I think his theory makes much more sense. It just would have been easier to pour each block in place rather than lug huge stones around.

Re: British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on Stonehenge was wrong

#57

Post by lobotryas » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 5:42 PM UTC

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #21

zorkw4rg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article even makes mentioned potential fraud: "[Thomas] was forgetful and sloppy, but at worst he was being deceptive" Without any further explanation. Science "journalism" certainly has the reputation it deserves.

To be fair, that’s a quote from the co-author of the study not the author of this article. And it does elaborate further later in the article on the context of where he was either forgetful or deceptive.

True, but the article author decided to include it. A less charitable interpretation might say it was included strictly as click bait.

Re: British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on Stonehenge was wrong

#58

Post by zby » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 5:46 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #15

A question that really interests me about Stonehenge, Gobleki Teppeh and other such mysterious monumental sites is " how many people did this? " When we (now, and in the past) look at ancient construction projects, we instinctively tend to imagine fairly "brute force" construction methods. Basically, the way things are done now but with people powered trucks, cranes and such. Think of all those depictions of many peo…

With some ingenuity it is possible with much less human power than is commonly imagined: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5pZ7uR6v8c

Re: British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on Stonehenge was wrong

#59

Post by ec109685 » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 6:50 PM UTC

nonbel wrote: post #56

dalbasal wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, definitely much smaller scale. Still, the unit of work is similar (massive stone cut, moved and placed). If it takes a lot of people, that implies a lot of people coordinating at that time an place. In a sense, it gives us a minimal level of societal complexity that must have existed. Since britain didn't seem to have towns or cities, the nature of this complexity would be pre-civilised in the literal civil=city…

You don't have to move huge stones. Its possible to cast limestone in place, like concrete. I read/watched some stuff about this guy not too long ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Davidovits He claims he sent samples of his cast limestone to geologists and they couldnt tell the difference. Overall I think his theory makes much more sense. It just would have been easier to pour each block in place rather than…

I am surprised there aren’t documenration / art that describes the process contemporaneously.

Re: British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on Stonehenge was wrong

#60

Post by Retra » Sun, Jul 08, 2018, 6:54 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #15

A question that really interests me about Stonehenge, Gobleki Teppeh and other such mysterious monumental sites is " how many people did this? " When we (now, and in the past) look at ancient construction projects, we instinctively tend to imagine fairly "brute force" construction methods. Basically, the way things are done now but with people powered trucks, cranes and such. Think of all those depictions of many peo…

The tools we use today are basically the same techniques that were used before. The only real differences is stronger materials and engines. I.e., the difference between turning a crank at 1000 rpm versus 3 rpm. And if you're forced to use the latter, it's going to look like loads of dudes and animals dragging things about no matter how it is organized.

All in all, what I'm saying is that we see the past as using "brute force" construction methods because those are the construction methods we still use today. We just use denser energy sources to make it happen faster. This isn't going to change any cultural understandings unless you're trying to paint a picture that magic was involved before.