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

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

#41

Post by AStrangeMorrow »

edgyquant wrote: post #12
civilitty wrote: post #2

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…

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.

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"

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

#42

Post by ricksunny »

detritus wrote: post #4
stareatgoats wrote: post #3

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 other…

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.

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.

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

#43

Post by AStrangeMorrow »

Qwertious wrote: post #33
AStrangeMorrow wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-...

>(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 us…

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.

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

#44

Post by AStrangeMorrow »

zeteo wrote: post #30
stareatgoats wrote: post #3

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 other…

It's not really a pyramid, just an ancient volcanic core where people deposited stones on top of it for long periods of time. There is no indication of architecture, engineering or organized work crews being involved in the construction. It may be the world's largest cairn/tumulus but definitely not the oldest pyramid.

Exactly. There might be some traces of human passage dating 10000 years ago. But basically what we have is: surface-ish level construction, then a bunch of stones they interpret as old masonry but that is more likely natural, with deeper possible human traces as organic material, such as even a hunter gatherer that made a fire here one night. They use that to conclude to a paleolithic construction site.

Kinda like going to a European church, finding a bunch of stones and gravel under for 30m. Finding one silex around the same depth ans thus concluding European paleolithic people 10-20000 years ago were building complex edifices.

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

#45

Post by civilitty »

edgyquant wrote: post #12
civilitty wrote: post #2

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…

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.

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

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

#47

Post by AStrangeMorrow »

ricksunny wrote: post #42
detritus wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 in…

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_r...

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

#48

Post by kragen »

narrator wrote: post #16
pavlov wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Abiotic oil is a pretty well developed theory. Lab experiments have show that temperature and pressures present in the earths core will form hydrocarbons from carbon and water. There's also all the extensive work by Gold on the deep hot biosphere. Also, the entire atmosphere of Titan is hydrocarbons for example, so it's not like hydrocarbons need life to exist. However, abiotic production is perhaps a few billion bar…

there isn't any carbon or water in earth's core

hydrocarbons are energetically stable on titan because it's oxygen-deficient, a reducing environment. earth's surface is, by contrast, an oxidizing environment

the deep hot biosphere is unrelated

abiogenic petroleum prooduction is still not as well understood as you suggest

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

#49

Post by kragen »

pavlov wrote: post #8
narrator wrote: post #7

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.

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…

this is an interesting point of view, but after thinking about it for several years, i think it's mistaken. some of the reasons can't be put into words, but here's what i can explain

geothermal energy (so-called egs) and solar are each individually far more abundant than fossil fuels ever have been; wind energy is comparable to fossil fuels and easier to harness. hydropower is a smaller resource but still one that's sufficient for industrialization

fossil fuel exploitation for mass production of steel in blast furnaces was widespread in song china 800 years ago but didn't lead to the industrial revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Song_dynasty#St...

contrary to kris de decker's wishful thinking, medieval and early modern holland didn't have an industrial revolution either, despite wind power

the industrial revolution still hasn't reached much of the planet; consider how many people still subsist on agriculture or unskilled, non-mass-production urban labor, in places like my own country (my experience here is the part that's hard to put into words) but most especially in the regions where fossil fuels are most abundant

the hard part of the industrial revolution was probably science, liberalism, and capitalism; superstition and kleptocracy are the human default

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

#50

Post by dang »

New evidence strongly suggests Indonesia's Gunung Padang is oldest known pyramid - 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 - Nov 2023 (40 comments)

Gunung Padang - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37760981 - Oct 2023 (24 comments)

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