New evidence strongly suggests Indonesia's Gunung Padang is oldest known pyramid
1–10 of 43 posts
Re: New evidence strongly suggests Indonesia's Gunung Padang is oldest known pyramid
#2Junk science. They just scooped up some dirt and did radiocarbon dating. No effort to make sure the sample was in context (e.g. from a layer above construction activity, or a cooking fire or something).
So some dirt in the vicinity of the pyramid is 20k years old. That says absolutely nothing of value.
Re: New evidence strongly suggests Indonesia's Gunung Padang is oldest known pyramid
#3The pyramid of Gunung Padang began construction in the deep past, study claims
https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy35mx/a-prehistoric-pyramid...
42 points|bcaulfield|13 hours ago|34 comments
Re: New evidence strongly suggests Indonesia's Gunung Padang is oldest known pyramid
#4Junk science. They just scooped up some dirt and did radiocarbon dating. No effort to make sure the sample was in context (e.g. from a layer above construction activity, or a cooking fire or something). So some dirt in the vicinity of the pyramid is 20k years old. That says absolutely nothing of value.
Is there any way that someone now can deliberately add a verifiable date to an object/structure/etc.?
Something that a million plus years from now would objectively demonstrate the age to a researcher of the future.
Considering the strong tendency to disregard old written historical records people of the future will likely face a similar dilemma attempting to accurately date any ruins of our present day buildings.
Re: New evidence strongly suggests Indonesia's Gunung Padang is oldest known pyramid
#5> And, they found that the older parts of the structure were made sometime between 25,000 and 14,000 years ago, making it the oldest known pyramid in the world today.
I mean, it makes it the oldest known structure, not just pyramid.
Re: New evidence strongly suggests Indonesia's Gunung Padang is oldest known pyramid
#6Junk science. They just scooped up some dirt and did radiocarbon dating. No effort to make sure the sample was in context (e.g. from a layer above construction activity, or a cooking fire or something). So some dirt in the vicinity of the pyramid is 20k years old. That says absolutely nothing of value.
Is there any way that someone now can deliberately add a verifiable date to an object/structure/etc.? Something that a million plus years from now would objectively demonstrate the age to a researcher of the future. Considering the strong tendency to disregard old written historical records people of the future will likely face a similar dilemma attempting to accurately date any ruins of our present day buildings.
Maybe you could engrave the relative positions of some nearby stars onto a plaque or something like that? Ceramic lasts basically forever, right? Maybe you wouldn’t get “Tuesday, Deceduary 110th 2132” level of precision but you could perhaps get something pretty precise with the right choice of stars?
Re: New evidence strongly suggests Indonesia's Gunung Padang is oldest known pyramid
#7Junk science. They just scooped up some dirt and did radiocarbon dating. No effort to make sure the sample was in context (e.g. from a layer above construction activity, or a cooking fire or something). So some dirt in the vicinity of the pyramid is 20k years old. That says absolutely nothing of value.
Is there any way that someone now can deliberately add a verifiable date to an object/structure/etc.? Something that a million plus years from now would objectively demonstrate the age to a researcher of the future. Considering the strong tendency to disregard old written historical records people of the future will likely face a similar dilemma attempting to accurately date any ruins of our present day buildings.
There's no need. All of our biological waste (e.g. wood) will provide reliable carbon dates within the range of ~50k years. Radioisotope ratios in our metals and construction materials can be used to date our inorganic ruins on geologic time scales.
Radioisotope dating doesn't work for stone structures like the one described in this article, because it would date the age of the stone, not the structure. But concrete is poured, and steel forged or reforged at or close to its actual use date. So radioisotope ratios in these materials ought to give a reliable dating mechanism on very long timescales.
Re: New evidence strongly suggests Indonesia's Gunung Padang is oldest known pyramid
#8New = 2011 to 2015
Old enough to have been the first episode in last year's Netflix documentary “Ancient Apocalypse”, aka “the most dangerous show on Netflix”:
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/nov/23/ancient...
Re: New evidence strongly suggests Indonesia's Gunung Padang is oldest known pyramid
#9Junk science. They just scooped up some dirt and did radiocarbon dating. No effort to make sure the sample was in context (e.g. from a layer above construction activity, or a cooking fire or something). So some dirt in the vicinity of the pyramid is 20k years old. That says absolutely nothing of value.
The article specifically says that they "drilled down into the hill and collected core samples that allowed them to use radiocarbon dating techniques to learn the ages of the layers that make up the hill."
They didn't randomly pickup dirt from the base of the pyramid and date it as you seem to be implying, they used the standard method of taking core samples at various depths to find the dates of the various layers of the pyramid. Based on that they made the claim.
Re: New evidence strongly suggests Indonesia's Gunung Padang is oldest known pyramid
#10Junk science. They just scooped up some dirt and did radiocarbon dating. No effort to make sure the sample was in context (e.g. from a layer above construction activity, or a cooking fire or something). So some dirt in the vicinity of the pyramid is 20k years old. That says absolutely nothing of value.
The article specifically says that they "drilled down into the hill and collected core samples that allowed them to use radiocarbon dating techniques to learn the ages of the layers that make up the hill." They didn't randomly pickup dirt from the base of the pyramid and date it as you seem to be implying, they used the standard method of taking core samples at various depths to find the dates of the various layers o…
The radiocarbon date of the material used in the construction of the hill doesn’t change when it is pushed around to make a hill. That dirt was already old.