Michael Shermer vs. "alternative history" Hancock and Crandall

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Right, you just reject those.

I don't understand what you're trying to say. Who just rejects what?

 

[Andy_Ross]

It seems to me the whole case for this supposed civilization rests upon the belief that the stones were shaped by some 'unknown method' therefore it had to be some kind of high tech method so there was an advanced civilization.

 

[Craig B]

What was happening 12,500 bc?

Hunting wild animals, gathering wild plants, catching wild fish.

If you are referring to Puma Punku, you'd be mistaken to conclude that those ruins were carved with stone, bronze, or copper chisels...

What were they carved with in your view? And on what evidence?

By the way, I never conclude that stone has been cut cut with copper chisels.

 

[King of the Americas]

I don't understand what you're trying to say. Who just rejects what?

Facts that don't align with your preconceived notions.

 

[King of the Americas]

It seems to me the whole case for this supposed civilization rests upon the belief that the stones were shaped by some 'unknown method' therefore it had to be some kind of high tech method so there was an advanced civilization.

Not quite. The size of the structures, indicate large settlements, and civilization. The ruins themselves indicate and advanced ability to move and shape stone.

That these structures date to 12,500, and thereafter we became hunter gatherers all point to a lost civilization.

 

[King of the Americas]

Hunting wild animals, gathering wild plants, catching wild fish. What were they carved with in your view? And on what evidence?

By the way, I never conclude that stone has been cut cut with copper chisels.

GT was NOT built by hunter gatherers.

Whatever process or tools that shaped the stones at Puma Punku, are gone, lost to time.

The stones were NOT carved or fashioned by people without a written language.

 

[King of the Americas]

Heinrich Scliemann would be embarrassed for you. He knew what good evidence looked like, and once he found it he had no trouble convincing people.

Bull butter!

He was alone in his thoughts about Troy being a real place. People called him a fool, until he found it.

 

[King of the Americas]

Of course it is. Writers frequently create entire fictitious countries, even worlds, to make points about the real one. Jonathon Swift, Terry Pratchett ...

Right, those writers tildes they were writing fiction.

Produce a single piece of Plato saying so, and I'll accept it as such.

 

[Pixel42]

He was alone in his thoughts about Troy being a real place. People called him a fool, until he found it.

Nope, there were others (eg British archaeologist Frank Calvert) who thought there might be an historical basis for some of Homer's tales. But few were convinced until convincing evidence was found, which is just as it should be. No convincing evidence has ever been found for the historicity of Atlantis, despite considerable effort. The "evidence" you are offering is, I repeat, embarrassing in its inadequacy.

 

[Pixel42]

Right, those writers tildes they were writing fiction.

Produce a single piece of Plato saying so, and I'll accept it as such.

Quote Jonathon Swift saying "Lilliput is fictional, I made it up".

Quote Terry Pratchett saying "Discworld is fictional, I made it up".

It's perfectly obvious what Plato was doing. He did it all the time.

 

[Craig B]

GT was NOT built by hunter gatherers.

Whatever process or tools that shaped the stones at Pumapunku^WP, are gone, lost to time.

But not lost to archaeologists. The tools have been found

Some of the stones are in an unfinished state, showing some of the techniques used to shape them. They were initially pounded by stone hammers, which can still be found in numbers on local andesite quarries, creating depressions, and then slowly ground and polished with flat stones and sand​

The stones were NOT carved or fashioned by people without a written language.

How do you know? Where is your evidence for a written language? If you have found examples of writing in ancient Peru, you will become famous throughout the world, I hope you realise.

ETA I assume you also reject this dating, which is nowhere near the end of the Ice Age.

Since the radiocarbon date came from the lowermost and oldest layer of mound-fill underlying the andesite and sandstone stonework, the stonework must have been constructed sometime after 536–600 AD.​

That's about the same age as Hagia Sofia in Constantinople, or a little later.

 

[Pacal]

Bull butter!

He was alone in his thoughts about Troy being a real place. People called him a fool, until he found it.

Absolutely false. Schliemann was not in the least unusual in thinking Troy was a real place. The bottom line is that Troy had been thought to be a real place for thousands of years and it was also thought that the Trojan war really happened. However in the late 18th and early 19th centuries there emerged a group of skeptics who pointed out that the evidence for Homer's Troy was dubious and asked for better evidence. This was not a majority position.

This was dressed by later mythmakers has a story about a lone genius proving that the hidebound establishment was wrong.

Oh and possible site for Troy that Schliemann excavated had been known for quite sometime. It had been known that the mound Hissarlik was the location of the Greco-Roman town of Ilium/ Troy and that this is where the Greeks and Romans thought was the site of Homer's Troy / Ilium. This was known for quite sometime among European Classicalists long before Schliemann.

Schliemann was also to a large extent his own mythmaker. He sometimes, quite deliberately created false romantic stories about his own achievements. His version of the finding of Priam's Treasure is one example of that. It is almost certainly false. He also interpreted his finds to fit his mytho-romantic bent. Thus he thought the wrong layer of Hissarlik was Homer's Troy. When he excavated the shaft tombs at Mycenae, he thought he was excavating the tombs of Agamemnon et al. Further when Schliemann, before Hissarlik, excavated on the island of ithaka he thought he had found remains associated with Odyessus!

Schliemann created a romantic image of himself and then the media, loving a good story of the underdog proving the establishment wrong, ran with it. It is to put it politely an exaggeration.

 

[Pacal]

GT was NOT built by hunter gatherers.

Whatever process or tools that shaped the stones at Puma Punku, are gone, lost to time.

The stones were NOT carved or fashioned by people without a written language.

I suggest that you look up the work done on the Quipu used has recording devices by the Inca and apparently by earlier Andean people.

This recording device was more than a simple aide-memoire, but a fairly sophisticated device to encode information. It may not have been a full blown writing system but it was a information storage device, that structured so that different rreaders of the Quipus could "read" the same information.

There is the outside chance that Quipus could have been a full blown writing system. There is evidence that Quipus are fairly ncient in the Andean region.

Probably the worlds formost expert on the Quipus is Gary Urton. To start I suggest you take a look at his Signs of the Inka Khipu: Binary Coding in the Andean Knotted-String Records Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2003.

 

[Craig B]

I suggest that you look up the work done on the Quipu used has recording devices by the Inca and apparently by earlier Andean people.

This recording device was more than a simple aide-memoire, but a fairly sophisticated device to encode information. It may not have been a full blown writing system but it was a information storage device, that structured so that different rreaders of the Quipus could "read" the same information.

There is the outside chance that Quipus could have been a full blown writing system. There is evidence that Quipus are fairly ncient in the Andean region.

Probably the worlds formost expert on the Quipus is Gary Urton. To start I suggest you take a look at his Signs of the Inka Khipu: Binary Coding in the Andean Knotted-String Records Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2003.

Even though it may contain significant information, does binary coding in knotted string constitute a "written language"?

 

[King of the Americas]

But not lost to archaeologists. The tools have been found

Some of the stones are in an unfinished state, showing some of the techniques used to shape them. They were initially pounded by stone hammers, which can still be found in numbers on local andesite quarries, creating depressions, and then slowly ground and polished with flat stones and sand​

How do you know? Where is your evidence for a written language? If you have found examples of writing in ancient Peru, you will become famous throughout the world, I hope you realise.

ETA I assume you also reject this dating, which is nowhere near the end of the Ice Age.

Since the radiocarbon date came from the lowermost and oldest layer of mound-fill underlying the andesite and sandstone stonework, the stonework must have been constructed sometime after 536–600 AD.​

That's about the same age as Hagia Sofia in Constantinople, or a little later.

Those were of the later works, not the most ancient ones.

Stone masons were asked tocarte hundreds of interlocking wall pieces each with 50+ sides and perfect right angles. To mine eyes, the blocks look molded or cast...but there is no evidence to look at other than the ruins. One stone of interest features an 1/4 inch square line cut into the stone with holes drilled equal distance apart. That line was NO chiseled out.

GT was dated to 12,500...

 

[King of the Americas]

Nope, there were others (eg British archaeologist Frank Calvert) who thought there might be an historical basis for some of Homer's tales. But few were convinced until convincing evidence was found, which is just as it should be. No convincing evidence has ever been found for the historicity of Atlantis, despite considerable effort. The "evidence" you are offering is, I repeat, embarrassing in its inadequacy.

Are you really claiming that it was generally accepted that Troy was NOT a fictional city, but in fact real?

 

[Pixel42]

Are you really claiming that it was generally accepted that Troy was NOT a fictional city, but in fact real?

I'm saying that Schliemann was not the only person who thought that Troy might have been a real place.

 

[Andy_Ross]

To mine eyes, the blocks look molded or cast.

So that would be concrete?

 

[Pacal]

Even though it may contain significant information, does binary coding in knotted string constitute a "written language"?

I suggest you read Urton's book. Binary coding of knotted strings is actually fairly sophisticated. And has I mentioned in my previous posting it may constitute a full blown writing system. My point is that the Inca and likely their predecessors had at the very least a sophisticated system via the Quipus for the storage and recording of information even if it turns out it didn't record a language.

This method of recording etc., information would it seems have amply suited for their needs of record keeping and has such recording a language was likely not necessary for them, the Inca etc., to organize etc., their feats of civil engineering such has the Inca Road system.

 

[Matthew Ellard]

Facts that don't align with your preconceived notions.

That's right.
1) Archaeological evidence from Göbekli Tepe is clear that beer from only wild grains existed indicating there was no pre-existing large scale agriculture (selective breeding)
2) There is no legacy DNA evidence in the area of pre-9000 year old selective breeding confirming no pre-existing agriculture.
3) The motifs and structures found at Göbekli Tepe also exist at many other later archaeological sites indicating the population did not die out or were wiped out by a magical flood.