New evidence strongly suggests Indonesia's Gunung Padang is oldest known pyramid
phys.org
phys.org
Are there any fields of study where this is not true? Surely someone must have come up with a "Law of..." or "...'s Law" for this by now.
They use the generic SHCal20 calibration curve for the southern hemisphere which is generally fine for testing bone and some plant matter but they didn't find any fossilized plants and I doubt it's accurate for soil samples in a volcanically active area. Gunung Padang sits atop an extinct volcano and Mount Gede is miles away uphill with active vents and hot springs. Local emissions of C14 depleted carbon dioxide and dissolution of ancient carbonate minerals in groundwater usually throws those numbers way off. The samples will appear older because the volcanoes are constantly dumping C14-poor carbon into the environment from deep in the earth.
There's ample evidence for their other conclusions like the multiple stages of building but they'd have to corroborate the radiocarbon dating with several other methods and create their own calibration for the region to really confirm the dating, which isn't necessarily an easy thing to do.
Reading the actual paper, I’m having a tough time visualizing the “sculpted” aspects of Unit 4. This is supposedly the volcanic core that was carved bw 20k and 15k BC. Based on the dating of the other layers, it seems much more likely that a volcano erupted there like 50k years ago and slowly eroded, right? Hilman’s got that diagram of the site labeled with “tunnel” and maybe that’s a translation thing, but the tunnel is right where you’d expect a volcanic conduit to be. He also uses the suggestive term “chamber” elsewhere. There’s no debate that this is an old volcano btw, and no debate that there is an interesting ancient structure (500 AD) on top of the hill. It’s the “carved” internal structure that seems like a big big stretch.
So some dirt in the vicinity of the pyramid is 20k years old. That says absolutely nothing of value.
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.
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.
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.
Unit 1 (surface): 2,000-1000BC Unit 2 : 6,000-5000 BC Unit 3: 24,000-14,000BC Unit 4: NO data
Unit 2 is clearly artificial and represents a construction layer. It has pieces of cut columnar basalt aligned parallel to the ground -- which does not occur naturally, so it is undisputedly artificial.
The soil filled on top of Unit 2 contains homogenous radiocarbon dates and no weathering indicating it was placed all at the same time.
They unit 3 layer contains weathered rounded boulders stacked on top of each other -- this type of weathering normally occurs in a stream an their presence on top of a hill does seem to indicate they were placed there. They also seem to be placed into structures forming a wall. While it is less obviously artificial than unit 2 -- they still provide some compelling evidence that it is indeed artificial.
They claim unit 4 is a natural andesite lava flow that has been "sculpted", but I don't see any evidence to back up that particular claim in the paper, unless i missed it.
TLDR: they did exactly what you mentioned -- took samples from above / below / inside various construction layers, and the dates match the stratigraphic context.... It wasn't just 'scooped up in the vicinity of the pyramid.
I agree given the nature of their claims, it would be ideal if they included another dating method like OSL to go along with the radiocarbon dates, but the radiocarbon dates themselves are not as half-hazard as you make them out to be.
1. Soil is alive--it is constantly interacting with the atmosphere, if it is close enough to the surface, and the nutrients which seep through it and the various organic matter that lives inside it. You might be able to reliably date a peet bog or other undisturbed anoxic system, but packed soil in a tropical environment is a bit more suspect (no matter how buried). Otherwise the "date" of the soil is continuously evolving based on local conditions that are difficult to calibrate. That's why archeologists typically date things like the charred remains of a cooking fire, not soil.
2. Ok, assume that these dates are in any way meaningful. That still doesn't establish the age of the structure as claimed in the article. Surface dates are totally suspect for the reasons I gave above, but for the purpose of this point we can grant it. So Unit 1 provides only an unsurprising minimum age. The packed dirt in Unit 2 & 3 on the other hand is construction back-fill: the radiocarbon age of the packed soil is the average age of the soil they used in construction. But that soil was already old. Think about it this way: if you took that surface soil from Unit 1 and put it on top of your house porch, we'd now be able say your porch was constructed between 2,000-1000BC.
This article establishes that there were two construction phases, and that these phases were likely carried out at different times because different sources of back-fill soil were used. But that's it. The actual dates have no relation to the human activity.
> The oldest construction, Unit 4, likely originated as a natural lava hill before being sculpted and then architecturally enveloped during the last glacial period between 25 000 and 14 000 BCE.
Evidence for ‘sculpted and architecturally enveloped’ seems spotty though, and it’s also an interesting choice of words that carefully avoids saying anything was ‘constructed’
The dating is this paper is definitely questionable. For one, the extent of their analysis seems to have been taking samples, sending them to the lab (which could have widely varying error checking, I haven't worked with this one specifically), and using stock date calibration software. Unfortunately, they're sampling an area known to be volcanic (which tends to produce older than true dates), with lots of water (matter transports through soil), across a difficult boundary (the Holocene), and a lot of vegetative intrusion (another common error source). They attempt to dismiss the latter by saying it can only make dates younger, which isn't even true, only typical.
The headline would be a tough argument to make even if their evidence was good given the prior history here, but they don't seem to have put even basic effort into it.
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...
20,000 years older than pyramids of Egypt. Older than Göpekli Tepe.
I’m personally not surprised if there are other 8,000 year periods of human coordination and stability to pursue complex ideas. Across, what, now 200,000 years?
I can see the limitations of collecting the evidence involved in perceiving that, and I dont need to wait around for that to believe it. Preteens doing graffiti in caves have preserved art. I dont think it is any indication of human progression at that point in time.
We each are welcome to our beliefs, of course, but unless we provide some basis for them - especially evidence - what value do they provide to others? That basis is the value; its strength is the strength of the comment. The opinion itself has no real substance; it's directions for how the author might navigate the substance (the basis); it's a sign that points out what we perceive as valuable.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy35mx/a-prehistoric-pyramid...
42 points|bcaulfield|13 hours ago|34 comments
“The integrated surveys at Gunung Padang were conducted for 3 years, from November 2011 to October 2014...”
... completed so long ago it served as an 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...
I once watched one of the Ancient Aliens episodes for fun (it was entertaining) and found some pretty poor logic being used to try to fit their conclusions (no surprise there). It is a little sad that a certain portion of the population eats it up though.
I will say the title of the linked article is also jumping pretty hard when asking "how has this been allowed".
That might have the opposite effect. If the label is perceived as "being cool", or "presenting stuff they don't want you to know", then some will be more intrigued, more likely to believe it.
1. It's fundamentally anti-intellectual. A lot of the show is ultimately based on attacking archaeology as a field on the basis that it rejects his ideas, without ever attempting to interact with the (well-grounded) reasons his ideas are being rejected. Quite frankly, takes like "the most dangerous show on Netflix" help Hancock more than hurt him, which is one of the reasons I'd never call it that.
2. The ideology is... uncomfortable. His underlying thesis amounts to "white people built every interesting archaeological structure we find in the world before suddenly disappearing without leaving any other trace," although the "white" has been removed from overt mentions in more recent year. Yet you can still guess that it's still covertly there by observing that European constructions never seem to undergo this process.
3. Bad archaeology and pseudoarchaeology can fuel modern arguments for screwing indigenous peoples out of their land or culture, etc.
4. Poor archaeological practices can ruin the ability to do good archaeology on the site in the future. Note the excavation we're talking about here is an example of such poor achaeological--the site has been greatly disturbed by the excavation, which could well foreclose the ability to properly date the site in the future. On a related note, this can also fuel the general public to visit a site and, well, loot it.
5. A final note is that the demand for ancient aliens-style shows crowds out any attempt by archaeologists to actually put together shows about real, interesting archaeological discovers. Producers don't want a show about Çatalhöyük or Göbekli Tepe or Norte Chico that produce interesting questions that challenge what people likely learned in school about the history of civilization. No, you have to attack it with an ancient aliens or whatever conspiracy theory to be able to actually make the documentary. Mainstream archaeology is considered "boring" even when it is absolutely the opposite.
It's dangerous because it represents the popularization of anti-intellectualism in the modern world.
Even if the dating is most likely inaccurate as a structure, I got that similar surreal emotion when I learned about Gunung Padang.
I mean, it makes it the oldest known structure, not just pyramid.