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The pyramid of Gunung Padang began construction in the deep past, study claims

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Re: The pyramid of Gunung Padang began construction in the deep past, study claims

#21

Post by wolverine876 »

The Phys.org article paints a much more clear picture:

> More specifically, the researchers found evidence of several efforts that together over time, added up to a completed structure. The first consisted of sculpted lava—where builders had carved shapes onto the top of a small, dead volcano. Then, several thousand years later, sometime between 7900 to 6100 BCE, another group added a layer of bricks and rock columns. Some unknown time later, another group added a dirt layer to part of the hill, covering some of the earlier work. Then sometime between 2000 and 1100 BCE yet another group added more top soil, stone terracing, and other elements.

> The research team has also found some evidence suggesting there might be some hollow parts inside the structure, suggesting possible hidden chambers. They plan to drill down to them and then lower a camera to see what might be in these areas.

https://phys.org/news/2023-11-evidence-strongly-indonesia-gu...

Re: The pyramid of Gunung Padang began construction in the deep past, study claims

#22

Post by mcguire »

swader999 wrote: post #18
ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #5

> they say that the evidence from Gunung Padang indicates that advanced construction techniques existed before agriculture was adopted. wow if this is true, this is truly revolutionary.

Didn't Gobekli Tepe already do this?

Along with a stack of related sites nearby, yep.

Re: The pyramid of Gunung Padang began construction in the deep past, study claims

#23

Post by feoren »

wolverine876 wrote: post #19
feoren wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Over the years 2011 to 2015, they studied the structure using seismic tomography, electrical resistivity tomography and ground-penetrating radar. This has absolutely nothing to do with assessing the age of the site. I believe them that it's a complex structure with likely underground sites. I do not believe them that it's 25,000 years old. The age claim is based entirely on radiocarbon dating of organic soils found…

What have independent experts said about it? I see it passed peer review. Having no expertise myself, I know it's still easy to shoot down anything. That's why I always look to people with expertise, who know what's significant and what's not, because everything in the world is flawed.

You're right of course, and I certainly don't have that expertise. I am literally just some rando on the internet. But they are points I'd like to see addressed before we start rewriting our understanding of human history.

Re: The pyramid of Gunung Padang began construction in the deep past, study claims

#25

Post by netsharc »

simbolit wrote: post #14

From Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunung_Padang ): "Thirty-four Indonesian scientists signed a petition questioning the motives and methods of the Hilman-Arif team. Archaeologist Víctor Pérez described Natawidjaja's conclusions as pseudoarchaeology. (...) they 'found' something, carbon-dated it, then it looks like they created a civilisation around the period to explain their finding"

They found a way to get a steady research grant...

Re: The pyramid of Gunung Padang began construction in the deep past, study claims

#26

Post by mcguire »

wolverine876 wrote: post #19
feoren wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Over the years 2011 to 2015, they studied the structure using seismic tomography, electrical resistivity tomography and ground-penetrating radar. This has absolutely nothing to do with assessing the age of the site. I believe them that it's a complex structure with likely underground sites. I do not believe them that it's 25,000 years old. The age claim is based entirely on radiocarbon dating of organic soils found…

What have independent experts said about it? I see it passed peer review. Having no expertise myself, I know it's still easy to shoot down anything. That's why I always look to people with expertise, who know what's significant and what's not, because everything in the world is flawed.

From the ones I've seen, they aren't terribly impressed.

https://twitter.com/jens2go/status/1721625889585148297

Re: The pyramid of Gunung Padang began construction in the deep past, study claims

#28

Post by wolverine876 »

feoren wrote: post #23
wolverine876 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What have independent experts said about it? I see it passed peer review. Having no expertise myself, I know it's still easy to shoot down anything. That's why I always look to people with expertise, who know what's significant and what's not, because everything in the world is flawed.

You're right of course, and I certainly don't have that expertise. I am literally just some rando on the internet. But they are points I'd like to see addressed before we start rewriting our understanding of human history.

Fair enough, but I don't think anyone is leaping to the rewriting; it's just one paper.

FWIW, I've seen archeologists use soil samples in similar ways and I've had the same questions. At least at times, it's seen as legimate; that's all I know.

Re: The pyramid of Gunung Padang began construction in the deep past, study claims

#29

Post by nradov »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #6

This is one of those things that feels like “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Just going by Bayesian priors, I would say that the chances of the dating being wrong are higher than this pyramid actually having been constructed as a masonry pyramid in 25,000 BCE.

What is the extraordinary claim? If we look at the evidence from a neutral perspective with no preconceived notions, the evidence for a newer construction date doesn't seem particularly stronger than an older one. Modern Homo sapiens has been around at least 160,000 years so they could have potentially been building structures at any time after that. We really don't know how long it took humans to develop basic masonry and only a tiny fraction of the artifacts from the deep past have ever been found.

I fail to see how Bayesian priors have any relevance here. And numbers were assign are going to be largely guesses not based on real hard evidence.

Re: The pyramid of Gunung Padang began construction in the deep past, study claims

#30

Post by Lazare »

For anyone curious what's going on here:

You can't carbon date human activity, you can carbon date the point that organic material stopped growing. If you carbon date some partially burned wood found in the remains of a fireplace, then you can be pretty confident the fireplace was built around the time the tree the wood came from was cut down. And the better you can prove that what you found was actually a fireplace and that the sample actually came from inside it, the more confident you can be that the date you got relates to human activity.

If you just dig a hole in the ground, find some organic material, and carbon date it, you can be pretty confident that there were plants growing in the area in the past, but that's all you've discovered.

Guess which approach to carbon dating was followed here?

There's basically zero evidence presented that the pyramid was constructed 16k years ago, but they have made a strong case that there were plants growing in Indonesia 16k years ago. ...not that this was ever in any doubt, mind you.

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