Michael Shermer vs. "alternative history" Hancock and Crandall

[Matthew Ellard]

To mine eyes, the blocks look molded or cast...but there is no evidence to look at other than the ruins.

Nope. In archaeology you look at the nearby ruins to see if the technology spread with the population, for example Karahan Tepe.

It's the same reason archaeologists study Ionic and Doric Columns spreading through the Aegean. .

 

[Craig B]

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.

Thank you for the reference to the book. Meanwhile I'm discussing the issue with you. The Quipus were highly evolved string tallies; and they contained significant information. But I'm saying that ancient Peru had no written language, even if there was a knotted string mathematical notation. Do you disagree? Are the quipus documents specifically composed in Quechua or Aymara, or some other mode of speech? You appear on the contrary to be saying that written language was not necessary for construction of these architectural wonders.

I agree, and in addition I'm saying that advanced technology wasn't necessary either, and its presence can't be inferred from the archeological record unless artefacts unambiguously produced by it turn up in excavation ... and they haven't.

 

[Pacal]

Thank you for the reference to the book. Meanwhile I'm discussing the issue with you. The Quipus were highly evolved string tallies; and they contained significant information. But I'm saying that ancient Peru had no written language, even if there was a knotted string mathematical notation. Do you disagree? Are the quipus documents specifically composed in Quechua or Aymara, or some other mode of speech? You appear on the contrary to be saying that written language was not necessary for construction of these architectural wonders.

I agree, and in addition I'm saying that advanced technology wasn't necessary either, and its presence can't be inferred from the archeological record unless artefacts unambiguously produced by it turn up in excavation ... and they haven't.

I guess I'm not making myself clear. I was responding to KOA comment that since the natives of Peru didn't have a written language they could not build Puma Punka etc. My point was that they had a sophisticated system of recording information in the Quipus and that system would more or less satisfy the requirement for information storage to manage building various monuments and massive public works.

Gary Urton has claimed that he has deciphered the names of places in the Quipus. His main focus of work for the last decade or so has been the so-called historical Quipus. Has I said there is the outside chance that the Quipus may in fact turnout to be a complete writing system.

I personally suspect that the Quipus are not a complete writing system but instead a system of encoding information that a trained Quipus reader could read. It may have incorporated some elements of a phonetic system of writing but it would not be a complete writing system.

Sadly the whole debate regarding the Quipus is marred by the fact that there are not that many Quipus and further that the historical Quipus are very few indeed. The great majority of surviving Quipus are it appears census records of various kinds. There are also astronomical Quipus. Allied to this is that there are Quipus now located in Europe that are almost certainly forgeries. Most experts on the Quipus disregard those.

 

[King of the Americas]

So that would be concrete?

Nope, this stone is diorite, but the block are perfectly symmetrical, interlocking with not so much as a paper space between them.

I don't have any idea how they came to be, but I know they were not formed with chisels.

 

[King of the Americas]

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

Right...other 'crackpots' did too. He stance was certainly not 'mainstream'.

 

[King of the Americas]

*Where did the water from the scablands flood go?

*How much did it raise sea levels?

 

[Hans]

Bull butter!

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

Actually he didn't find it another guy did but he gets the credit because he knew how to play the media. Whether the city he found was Troy (he picked the wrong one from the different levels) is still not fully confirmed - but highly likely.

The guy who found the site:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Calvert

Oh and their were other people who thought Troy was real - it is incorrect to say he 'was alone'.

 

[Hans]

Right...other 'crackpots' did too. He stance was certainly not 'mainstream'.

The Romans all thought it was real and use to take tours their and they recolonized the site. So they certainly thought it was real. Lots of people thought it was real. The 'mainstream' at that time held that the world was created by God 6000 years ago.......it was better to alt back then

 

[Matthew Ellard]

.... but I know they were not formed with chisels.

Klaus Schmidt found stone hammers and blades at Gobekli Tepe.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-temple-83613665/

 

[King of the Americas]

These cuts were NOT carved with chisels...

 

[King of the Americas]

...

 

[King of the Americas]

Not Puma Punku...but also NOT carved with stone chisels...

 

[Craig B]

Right...other 'crackpots' did too. He stance was certainly not 'mainstream'.

It was a reasonable opinion held by respected scholars. This is from Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary 1771, entry on "history"

The Greeks knew very well how to distinguish between history and fable, between real facts and the tales of Herodotus:

... The date of the taking of Troy is specified in these marbles; but no mention is made of Apollo's arrows, or of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, or of the ridiculous combats of the gods.​

Voltaire therefore thought that Troy was real, but that in the Iliad mythical elements had been added to the authentic material. Voltaire was not a "lone nut", but an influential commentator.

 

[King of the Americas]

It was a reasonable opinion held by respected scholars. This is from Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary 1771, entry on "history"

The Greeks knew very well how to distinguish between history and fable, between real facts and the tales of Herodotus:

... The date of the taking of Troy is specified in these marbles; but no mention is made of Apollo's arrows, or of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, or of the ridiculous combats of the gods.​

Voltaire therefore thought that Troy was real, but that in the Iliad mythical elements had been added to the authentic material. Voltaire was not a "lone nut", but an influential commentator.

Now apply the same reasoning to Atlantis.

Why make up whole-cloth a city?? Maybe the characters or moral was made up, but the city and the facts surrounding it were likely real.

 

[Craig B]

Now apply the same reasoning to Atlantis.

Why make up whole-cloth a city?? Maybe the characters or moral was made up, but the city and the facts surrounding it were likely real.

What are you on about now? Troy really existed, and many scholars believed it existed, contrary to your "Schliemann was regarded as a nutcase" proposition. So now we've to change the subject. But Troy was found. If Atlantis is ever found I will happily "apply the same reasoning" to it. Until then, why should I? The circumstances are not the same.

 

[King of the Americas]

What are you on about now? Troy really existed, and many scholars believed it existed, contrary to your "Schliemann was regarded as a nutcase" proposition. So now we've to change the subject. But Troy was found. If Atlantis is ever found I will happily "apply the same reasoning" to it. Until then, why should I? The circumstances are not the same.

Atlantis was a true story about a lost ancient civilization...

 

[Matthew Ellard]

Klaus Schmidt found stone hammers and blades at Gobekli Tepe.

These cuts were NOT carved with chisels...

That's an argument from your personal belief system.

You have yet another problem. You claim that all the evidence was washed away in a magical flood, yet Klaus Schimdt, the Gobekli Tepe archaeologist found the stone tools used construct it. It gets worse for you. The skull incisions found at Gobekli Tepe are also only from stone tools.

More recently archaeologists found the residue of the grains that were used there and they were all wild grains. That destroys your fantasy about pre-12,500 agriculture.

It would seem your magical flood only removed evidence relating to your fantasy claims but left all the normal evidence there.

 

[Matthew Ellard]

These cuts were NOT carved with chisels...

String (straight edge), groove made by stone for split line and wooden wedges to force split. It's a well known technique.

One of the first things we made in anthropological prehistory, at uni was rope....way before we knapped stone tools.

 

[Matthew Ellard]

I have a really simple question for King of America.

If there was a massive flood at Gobekli Tepe that washed away everything, then why didn't it wash away the residue beer made from wild grains?

"In the December issue of the journal Antiquity, archaeologists describe evidence of nearly 11,000-year-old beer brewing troughs at a cultic feasting site in Turkey called Göbekli Tepe."
https://www.livescience.com/25855-stone-age-beer-brewery-discovered.html

 

[Pixel42]

Atlantis was a true story about a lost ancient civilization...

The fact that there are true stories about real cities does not mean that every story about a city is a true story about a real city.

The fact that Troy was a real place does not make it any more likely that Atlantis or Anch Morpock are real places. There are ways to determine which stories are most likely to be historical and which fictional. The story of Atlantis ticks none of the boxes for the former and all of the boxes for the latter.