'Lost Civilisations'

carlitos said:
This thread could be a logic class case study.
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Wow! Imagine that! Maybe the topic starter's name could be mentioned - in the most modest way of course?!!:D

That reminds me of several Morecome and Wise series in which they had the woman coming forward from the back of the stage/set at the very end, dramatically pushing M and W to either side as she said something like, 'Thank you all for coming to my little show!'
 
carlitos said:
...
  • How much poison frog venom would be needed to drop a mastadon?
  • Assuming that much poison wouldn't fit on just one dart, how would you get a bunch of darts into a mastadon; wouldn't he run away?
  • If you say "I'd bring friends with blowguns," how are the bunch of you going to get close without getting trampled?
  • How would you isolate one guy from the herd of Mastadon without them killing you? There's no way you drop the whole herd; how you going to get all that poison into just one of them?
  • Since it's a slow acting poison, how you gonna track the herd until your guy drops?
  • How did you find jungle frogs in the cold woodlands?
  • Etc.
Please enlighten me. Thanks. :)
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The most poisonous of these frogs, the Golden Poison Frog (Phyllobates terribilis), has enough toxin on average to kill ten to twenty men or about ten thousand mice.[22]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_dart_frog

I'd go with one shot one kill method, aiming for the mouth or anus...

*I carry frogs with me everywhere I go. :)
 
King of the Americas said:
The most poisonous of these frogs, the Golden Poison Frog (Phyllobates terribilis), has enough toxin on average to kill ten to twenty men or about ten thousand mice.
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Ignoring for a minute the fact that the frog is 2,000 miles away from the mastodon.

Yes, there is enough poison in the frog to kill the Mastodon. How are you going to get it all onto the tip of a dart, Mr. one-shot one-kill?

As for the mouth, your link reminds us that it has to go into the bloodstream, not be ingested orally.
 
KotA said:
I'd go with one shot one kill method, aiming for the mouth or anus...
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1) There's no way to get that frog to the mammoth.
2) There's no way to get close enough to a herd of mammoths for this to work without spooking them
3) There's that big trunk in the way of the mouth, and the tail in the way of the anus
4) How, using stone-age implements, would you get the poison out of the frogs?
5) Until you ACTUALLY DO IT, by your own logic we can't know how it was done. Either admit that proposing methods for carving stone is sufficient to illustrate that no advanced tech is needed, or admit that the tech for killing elephants requires an advanced civilization.

carlitos said:
As for the mouth, your link reminds us that it has to go into the bloodstream, not be ingested orally.
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KotA is not in the habit of reading the links he posts, it seems.
 
carlitos said:
Ignoring for a minute the fact that the frog is 2,000 miles away from the mastodon.

Yes, there is enough poison in the frog to kill the Mastodon. How are you going to get it all onto the tip of a dart, Mr. one-shot one-kill?

As for the mouth, your link reminds us that it has to go into the bloodstream, not be ingested orally.
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I am aiming for soft tissue...with an poisoned arrow or spear. If it doesn't kill it immediately, I am sure I can certainly slow it to a crawl.

This is a bit off topic, eh?
 
I find the mastodon-hunting sidebar to be quite germane to the main debate, insofar as it shows that KotA has a knack for fabricating imaginative explanations without the slightest amount of research, logic or rational thought.

How would you get the damn frogs from the rain forest to the tundra?
 
Vortigern99 said:
Why don't you do your own research? Everyone has to provide links and quotes for you, which after demanding you either don't read or, if you do skim them, misapprehend and/or ignore the salient details. It's enough to put one off trying to discuss anything with you.
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I've looked, but I haven't found this specific information, as of yet.
 
a clue!!!

I've looked, but I haven't found this specific information, as of yet.
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Sure you have.
Marduk said:
I have pretty much every excavation report ever published already, its red sandstone and andesite, if you message me your email i'll send you some good ones
:p
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Vortigern99 said:
As to the age of the site, it's about 1500 years old -- not 17,000 as you see in more credulous, paranormal-friendly articles.

Determining the age of the Pumapunku complex has been a focus of researchers since the discovery of the Tiwanaku site. As noted by Andean specialist, Binghamton University Anthropology professor W. H. Isbell, a radiocarbon date was obtained by Vranich from lowermost and oldest layer of mound fill forming the Pumapunku. This layer was deposited during the first of three construction epochs and dates the initial construction of the Pumapunku at 1510 ±25 B.P. C14 (AD 440; calibrated, AD 536–600). 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 1510 ±25 B.P. C14. The excavation trenches of Vranich show that the clay, sand, and gravel fill of the Pumapunku complex lies directly on the sterile middle Pleistocene sediments. These excavation trenches also demonstrated the lack of any pre-Andean Middle Horizon cultural deposits within the area of the Tiwanaku Site adjacent to the Pumapunku complex.
​
--summarized from:
Isbell, William H. (2004), "Palaces and Politics in the Andean Middle Horizon", in Evans, Susan Toby; Pillsbury, Joanne, Palaces of the Ancient New World, Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, pp. 191–246, ISBN 0-88402-300-1, http://www.doaks.org/publications/doaks_online_publications/isbn_0-88402-300-1.pdf, retrieved 2010-04-26

Vranich, A., 1999, Interpreting the Meaning of Ritual Spaces: The Temple Complex of Pumapunku, Tiwanaku, Bolivia. Doctoral Dissertation, The University of Pennsylvania.
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:rolleyes:

You have ignored about a dozen other posts with information on 4 possible carving techniques, and lots of information about the stone that you pretend to be interested in. Why do you keep asking questions if you won't read the answers?
 
I've looked, but I haven't found this specific information, as of yet.
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And yet somehow you feel qualified to 1) state the condition of our current knowledge (ie, to tell us what is and isn't known; for example, what is and isn't known about how the blocks were formed, what experiments haven't been done, etc), 2) demand that we take your arbitrary (because it's not based on data) opinion seriously, 3) demand that we provide proof to counter your claims, 4) demand that in the absence of us demonstrating (I assume to your satisfaction) that certain techniques work your argument be accepted, despite demonstrable gaps in data, etc. ad nauseum.

You put the horse first, then the cart. Works better that way.
 
punshhh said:
It was remarkable in the extent that it ignored how the stones where actually fitted to each other perfectly.
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Masonry with fitted stones is nothing high-tech, new, or impossible. Pre-columbian Americans did it too. You rough the rock to shape, try it, then refine the fit, try it again, then refine it some more.

The Egyptian stuff you're talking about, I presume was using rocks cut to very regular shapes (like large bricks).

I'm no authority, but I think the notion that the stones were always "perfectly" fitted is a myth. (I'm not even sure of how you'd define a "perfect" fit compared to one that is simply very good.)
 
carlitos said:
Sure you have.



:rolleyes:

You have ignored about a dozen other posts with information on 4 possible carving techniques, and lots of information about the stone that you pretend to be interested in. Why do you keep asking questions if you won't read the answers?
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Ignoring and 'not accepting based on the facts as I know them', are not the same thing.

I'll ask again questions that have NOT been provided answers.

How 'cornered' are these corners?

What, if any, tool marks are left?
 
So you won't read an excavation report, which would contain that information, but you'll keep asking posters here to do it for you. Cool.

Not to mention, it's a freaking straw man - why would master craftsmen leave tool marks? Why wouldn't they polish the finished product? Even a loser like me sands and fines woodwork with steel wool. Sheesh.
 
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KotA said:
I'll ask again questions that have NOT been provided answers.

How 'cornered' are these corners?

What, if any, tool marks are left?
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I suggest, again, reading the primary peer-reviewed literature. :rolleyes:

carlitos said:
why would master craftsmen leave tool marks? Why wouldn't they polish the finished product? Even a loser like me sands and fines woodwork with steel wool.
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I'd say it's even worse than that. First off, merely putting a heavy stone object on another heavy stone object can damage it. I've lost my share of samples that way. And if, like JoeTheJuggler suggests, they take the stones out and re-work them (a pretty typical construction and engineering behavior) you're also going to have abrasion between the stone faces, which would remove any tool marks. And if any of these are in areas that experience earthquakes you'd have the problem of the stones rubbing against one another during quakes. And then there's the issue of weathering--some of those pyramids are in very wet areas (and limestone, particularly fossiliferous limestone like what was used in Egypt for the pyramids, isn't known for its ability to withstand the weather). There's just too many ways to remove tool marks for that to be used as The One True Diagnostic Test.
 
King of the Americas said:
Not to nit-pick, but a square 'hole' would be much easier to cut that inlayed descending squares...
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Nope. Wrong again. But consistent. Your qualifications to understand the techniques involved in carving stone have been challenged, and you have yet to demonstrate that you possess any such qualifications, even at the most rudimentary level. Your opinion isn't even an argument. Your claim based on incredulity isn't even an argument. Your position is unequivocal, unsupported nonsense.
 
Marduk said:
this is another demonstration of ignorance on your part isn't it.
The Puma Punku temple was one of the last structures built at Tiwanaku and if you think thats impressive then you haven't seen the architecture at Teotihuacan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotih...ing the Puma Punka temple was never finished.
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