With what I know now about the geologic record and how much work there has been done in excavations...it's really hard for me to buy that there was not just a large civilization somewhere that we don't recognize...but that this civilization was large enough to travel fully across the seas and interact with civilizations across much of the world, at a time of dramatic climate upheaval, without leaving any sort of substantial record.

 

I can buy that we'd miss their main city, esp. if it was somewhere in Persia...but no substantive archaeological records at all? Absence of proof is not proof of absence...but that's not exactly far away.

With what I know now about the geologic record and how much work there has been done in excavations...it's really hard for me to buy that there was not just a large civilization somewhere that we don't recognize...but that this civilization was large enough to travel fully across the seas and interact with civilizations across much of the world, at a time of dramatic climate upheaval, without leaving any sort of substantial record.

 

I can buy that we'd miss their main city, esp. if it was somewhere in Persia...but no substantive archaeological records at all? Absence of proof is not proof of absence...but that's not exactly far away.

 

The make a few arguments about the ages of a few things being wrong, such as the dating of the Sphinx and settlements/building in Peru.

AFAIK there's nothing in the archaeological records that supports anything like that. It's pure speculation.

I just don't understand all the evidence of machining. There are formations of rock (I believe diorite or something) that can only be cut by diamond or whatever and are absolutely perfectly cut and then placed together so that not even a human hair can fit in between the cut rocks. Almost as if they were levitated in some way and then heat-fused together. We have absolutely no explanation for how this could have been done.

 

 

The make a few arguments about the ages of a few things being wrong, such as the dating of the Sphinx and settlements/building in Peru.

Can they give a concrete reason why the ages are wrong? There are some issues with radiocarbon in that time span but the error is still quite a bit less than 6000 years.

This is the book if you ever are bored.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Fingerprints-Gods-Gr...k/dp/0517887290

I love Graham Hancock. He has some very interesting ideas. "The Message of the Sphinx" was a great read.

 

I got part of the way through "Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization", but it was a very long and dry reading, so I just couldnt press on with it. but it WAS interesting.

I just don't understand all the evidence of machining. There are formations of rock (I believe diorite or something) that can only be cut by diamond or whatever and are absolutely perfectly cut and then placed together so that not even a human hair can fit in between the cut rocks. Almost as if they were levitated in some way and then heat-fused together. We have absolutely no explanation for how this could have been done.

Well, first of all...there is a lot of stuff that can break or fracture just about any large scale rock, including a "Diorite". Rocks are very weak in tension...they can be broken fairly accurately using wedges if you know what you're doing, and although we might use diamond-impregnated stuff today, that's because it's fastest to do so.

 

Secondly, "Heat-fusing" rocks together on a short timespan would leave signatures in the rocks that people like me could pick up in a matter of hours. I know a guy who can tell you whether a rock was heated past 50 degrees C any time since it was formed...actually changing the crystal structure would take >800 degrees C and a fair amount of time.

 

I can't necessarily explain how it was done...but the assumptions there can be checked.

Can they give a concrete reason why the ages are wrong? There are some issues with radiocarbon in that time span but the error is still quite a bit less than 6000 years.

 

With the Sphinx there is supposedly evidence of water erosion with theorizes that there was flowing water around it at one point. The last possible time period was about 10-12k years ago.

I love Graham Hancock. He has some very interesting ideas. "The Message of the Sphinx" was a great read.

 

I got part of the way through "Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization", but it was a very long and dry reading, so I just couldnt press on with it. but it WAS interesting.

 

If I come across something by him again, I will pick it up for sure. It held my interest the whole time, which isn't easy.

With what I know now about the geologic record and how much work there has been done in excavations...it's really hard for me to buy that there was not just a large civilization somewhere that we don't recognize...but that this civilization was large enough to travel fully across the seas and interact with civilizations across much of the world, at a time of dramatic climate upheaval, without leaving any sort of substantial record.

 

I can buy that we'd miss their main city, esp. if it was somewhere in Persia...but no substantive archaeological records at all? Absence of proof is not proof of absence...but that's not exactly far away.

Many make the argument that a lot of civilizations grow around water/oceans. So, if a civilization existed near the water front during an ice age, most of it's structures were destroyed or drowned as the waters rose.

With the Sphinx there is supposedly evidence of water erosion with theorizes that there was flowing water around it at one point. The last possible time period was about 10-12k years ago.

Well, first of all, with all we've gotten about rapid climate change in the last 2 decades now that we've realized we need to care about how quick it can happen...the idea that you can't have had a single rain event that produced substantial erosive scouring around an object that IIRC actually wound up partially buried anyway leaves me skeptical.

AFAIK there's nothing in the archaeological records that supports anything like that. It's pure speculation.

There are many underwater structures that might have been built by humans when the oceans were lower.

Many make the argument that a lot of civilizations grow around water/oceans. So, if a civilization existed near the water front during an ice age, most of it's structures were destroyed or drowned as the waters rose.

But you're not just talking about a small settlement of 2000 people. You're talking about something substantial enough to have developed math and building power that literally reshaped civilizations around the globe 80 centuries later. A civilization advanced enough to do that would also wind up doing things like developing irrigation or maybe sanitation. They wouldn't confine themselves to the oceanfronts, they'd move up rivers seeking fertile agricultural land and hunting grounds.

/best thread in a long time

/best thread in a long time

Agreed. I'm just sitting here with some popcorn.

Well, first of all, with all we've gotten about rapid climate change in the last 2 decades now that we've realized we need to care about how quick it can happen...the idea that you can't have had a single rain event that produced substantial erosive scouring around an object that IIRC actually wound up partially buried anyway leaves me skeptical.

 

Hapgoods theory of crust displacement was the other thing he touched on, which I am not too sure about myself. Of course there really aren't any reputable links on it.

 

http://www.crawford2000.co.uk/hapgood-pole...ctonic-slip.htm

Agreed. I'm just sitting here with some popcorn.

δ13C of that is probably around -13 vs. PDB.

But you're not just talking about a small settlement of 2000 people. You're talking about something substantial enough to have developed math and building power that literally reshaped civilizations around the globe 80 centuries later. A civilization advanced enough to do that would also wind up doing things like developing irrigation or maybe sanitation. They wouldn't confine themselves to the oceanfronts, they'd move up rivers seeking fertile agricultural land and hunting grounds.

no doubt. I think there are very valid points for and against a "pre-civilization" civilization.

There are many underwater structures that might have been built by humans when the oceans were lower.

 

Places like the "Bimini road" and underwater japanese pyramids are supposedly evidence of those.

Hapgoods theory of crust displacement was the other thing he touched on, which I am not too sure about myself. Of course there really aren't any reputable links on it.

 

http://www.crawford2000.co.uk/hapgood-pole...ctonic-slip.htm

I dont buy too much into that either. I've seen the theory that Antarctica is really "Atlantis". Of all the theories I have seen, that's the biggest stretch.

Places like the "Bimini road" and underwater japanese pyramids are supposedly evidence of those.

I think the Bimini road has largely been disproven as an actual road. I thought I read they think it's what's left of a ship port.

I dont buy too much into that either. I've seen the theory that Antarctica is really "Atlantis". Of all the theories I have seen, that's the biggest stretch.

 

Of course there is no way to prove it, because it is under miles of ice. Funny how that works.

Well, first of all...there is a lot of stuff that can break or fracture just about any large scale rock, including a "Diorite". Rocks are very weak in tension...they can be broken fairly accurately using wedges if you know what you're doing, and although we might use diamond-impregnated stuff today, that's because it's fastest to do so.

 

Secondly, "Heat-fusing" rocks together on a short timespan would leave signatures in the rocks that people like me could pick up in a matter of hours. I know a guy who can tell you whether a rock was heated past 50 degrees C any time since it was formed...actually changing the crystal structure would take >800 degrees C and a fair amount of time.

 

I can't necessarily explain how it was done...but the assumptions there can be checked.

I am just explaining what technology would come to mind from our perspective. We have absolutely no idea how it was actually done.

 

And I'm not talking about breaking rocks with "wedges." I'm talking about rocks in the hundreds of tons cut with perfectly clean lines and then fit together so perfectly that a piece of paper can't be slid between them.

I am just explaining what technology would come to mind from our perspective. We have absolutely no idea how it was actually done.

 

And I'm not talking about breaking rocks with "wedges." I'm talking about rocks in the hundreds of tons cut with perfectly clean lines and then fit together so perfectly that a piece of paper can't be slid between them.

 

Again, work that we would find nearly impossible today.

Hapgoods theory of crust displacement was the other thing he touched on, which I am not too sure about myself. Of course there really aren't any reputable links on it.

 

http://www.crawford2000.co.uk/hapgood-pole...ctonic-slip.htm

This one is mine. We actually think something like this might have happened circa 550-600 million years ago, and probably happened pretty regularly on Mars. He's right that if you put a severe high-mass anomaly near the poles, the Earth's mantle will actually spin around on the liquid core and realign itself with that mass anomaly near the equator.

 

But this is where the fact that the Earth isn't circular comes in. The Earth is an oblate spheroid. It distorts outward along the equator because of the rotational speed of the planet. When you spin the Earth by tens of degrees...that oblate shape must spin too. The oblate shape is why that type of change is very rare...you have to overcome the fact that there is already a mass anomaly sitting at the equator, and you have to move that mass away.

 

When you move the spin axis, what happens then is that the oblate part tends to fade away and another one builds near the new equator...but it does so on a timescale of mantle flow. The mantle would flow that type of anomaly away on a period of ~millions of years. We'd actually still be sitting on a very distorted Earth today. If that had happened 10 ky ago, with satellite measurements we'd literally have mapped out the previous equator to within a kilometer.

 

There is also substantial geologic shifts which occur if the Earth spins. The stuff that was formerly near the Equator sinks by several kilometeres, while the stuff that moves to the new equator rises upwards by several kilometers (and tends to suddenly start eroding).

 

Finally, a huge number of rock types actually record to within a good margin of error their position on the Earth's surface. If there is anything magnetic in the rock (and most rocks are weakly magnetic), the rock records where it is relative to the Earth's magnetic field. If something moves north, the rock will be substantially misaligned with the current Earth's magnetic field.