That "Ancient Apocalypse" show

[Rocinante]

I think there's a possibility of a sophisticated culture that existed over twelve thousand years ago. But I wouldn't think, if they did, they'd hit their industrial revolution before being destroyed. There'd probably be archaeological evidence of extensive mining otherwise, or even residue carbon in the atmosphere.

Valid points, which is also why I'm not convinced. There just isn't adequate evidence.

Though it's also possible that whatever tech they used wouldn't leave the same kind of footprints that ours does, and we aren't looking for the right things. Additionally, humanity did not die out, and kind of just built over previous civilizations, which very well could have destroyed a lot of evidence.

Again, I am not saying I believe Graham's theories. More evidence is needed. I Just that he has been right about some stuff, and it's fun to think about what things might have been like if he's right about other stuff. I also certainly believe his findings warrant deeper investigation, and wish more archeological types took him seriously enough to start looking.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

Again, I am not saying I believe Graham's theories. More evidence is needed. I Just that he has been right about some stuff, and it's fun to think about what things might have been like if he's right about other stuff. I also certainly believe his findings warrant deeper investigation, and wish more archeological types took him seriously enough to start looking.

He's a bit of a crackpot, but he's undeniably right about humans building complicated stuff long before they should have been as according to modern consensus. Gobekli Tepe is a massive example of that. As evidenced by its excavations, archaeologists are sticking their big toes in the deep water already, but there's a lot of hesitance about jumping straight in.

In my opinion, I don't know why Hancock is so insistent on an Atlantean mother culture. If human beings had created civilisation before Younger Dryas, what's to stop numerous cultures, kingdoms, and empires, existing at the same time and waging war on each other? What could have been, might well have been more reminiscent of the Bronze Age than a hyper advanced Atlantis.

 

[Typhonis]

Personally all the Ancient Astronaut shit came about because of a few authors. One of the big ones being Howard Phillip Lovecraft.

He wrote about Ancient Aliens that visited the Earth. Heck there is one website that has a small thesis on it. Where the AA shit came from.

 

[Rocinante]

Personally all the Ancient Astronaut shit came about because of a few authors. One of the big ones being Howard Phillip Lovecraft.

He wrote about Ancient Aliens that visited the Earth. Heck there is one website that has a small thesis on it. Where the AA shit came from.

This is nothing like ancient aliens.

Graham may be wrong, but he's certainly on to some stuff, and has absolutely been correct about some past ideas. He's actually doing research and while he may be a bit of a crackpot in some areas, he is wayyyy more legitimate abd credible than any ancient aliens shit, which is just Sci fi posing as science.

 

[Cherico]

I think there's a possibility of a sophisticated culture that existed over twelve thousand years ago. But I wouldn't think, if they did, they'd hit their industrial revolution before being destroyed. There'd probably be archaeological evidence of extensive mining otherwise, or even residue carbon in the atmosphere.

I think were talking bronze age culture sophisitcated at most, with me putting a bet that they most likely had copper tools instead of more advanced bronze ones.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

I think were talking bronze age culture sophisitcated at most, with me putting a bet that they most likely had copper tools instead of more advanced bronze ones.

Bronze Age like is an idea I can entertain. Why would you say they wouldn't have bronze tools?

 

[Cherico]

Bronze Age like is an idea I can entertain. Why would you say they wouldn't have bronze tools?

Deposits of Tin and copper are very rarely co located, in order to have a successful bronze age you need vast trade links where as if your using just copper that requires less trade and less sophisication.

 

[Captain X]

I honestly think the ancients simply had more advanced tools and knowledge than archeologists will give them credit for. For example, the mainstream view is that the Egyptians who made obelisks and pyramids used copper and stone tools to do it all, yet copper is very soft and unsuited for cutting the hard granite these monuments were made of. Obviously they had something better, but archeology refuses to hear it. I got into an argument with one of those types about Gobekli Tepe for basically the same thing. They themselves described how these people used a similar technique to the Romans in that they would join stone blocks by carving out bone-shaped voids an pouring a molten metal into them, and in this case they used bronze. Ergo they could make at least bronze. Yet he insisted these people used stone tools, because "that is what the archeological record shows." These people honestly expect that they will find the tools used to build these places conveniently right next to them, because when I build a house, I totally just leave all the tools I used just laying around outside next to it. I mean, we know both sites were looted for stone, why is it such a stretch to think that any of the better tools that might have been around might also have been looted?

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

If there was an advanced societal collapse it would definitely be more like 'they ran out of tin/zinc/whatever' and had to melt down their likely mechanical/clockwork advancements to feed themselves. An advanced energy source? Nah, that's gonna be a hard sell to me.

The biggest flaw with Archaeology/Paleontology/Lots of things, is that everyone wants to be cool.

The soft handed academics want to make cool finds. Which is why they ignore so much.

Like sewing roman haristyles. A bunch of academics were like 'must've been wigs' and some stylist was like 'no fam, they sewed that hair into place' and the ivory tower types laughed at her. So she went and redid all the classic roman styles the 'smart' people were sure they were wigs.

There was another thing where IIRC they found a tube looking thing, and some delivery guy was doing his job and getting signatures and there was a pair of archaeologists discussing this tube thing. The delivery guy was like 'oh I have one of those.' These surely intelligent and qualified academics were bewildered. Why would a poor delivery man have an incredibly rare artifact? It's a breathing mouthguard to keep him from snoring. His completely modern version that looks almost exactly like the ancient version is so his wife doesn't murder him in his sleep.

Same hardware. The Ancients weren't stupid. But we get taught like they were. And Archaeologists fucking haaaaaaaaaate hearing shit from the commons, despite most of what they dig up was used by the commons.

There are a whole bunch of sciences like that. Where someone comes in with a simple, but probably correct idea and they shit on them until either the someone gives up and toes the line, or the someone nuts up, and then they bury it for a few more years before they can 'come up with a radical new idea that fits the puzzle pieces.' Like Thor Hydreal proving you could, in fact, sail from Peru to Polynesia.

Not to say that Mu, Lemuria, Atlantis, or some truly advanced precusor civ existed. But the ancients were alot more competent and capable than most realize.

 

[Rocinante]

If there was an advanced societal collapse it would definitely be more like 'they ran out of tin/zinc/whatever' and had to melt down their likely mechanical/clockwork advancements to feed themselves. An advanced energy source? Nah, that's gonna be a hard sell to me.

The biggest flaw with Archaeology/Paleontology/Lots of things, is that everyone wants to be cool.

The soft handed academics want to make cool finds. Which is why they ignore so much.

Like sewing roman haristyles. A bunch of academics were like 'must've been wigs' and some stylist was like 'no fam, they sewed that hair into place' and the ivory tower types laughed at her. So she went and redid all the classic roman styles the 'smart' people were sure they were wigs.

There was another thing where IIRC they found a tube looking thing, and some delivery guy was doing his job and getting signatures and there was a pair of archaeologists discussing this tube thing. The delivery guy was like 'oh I have one of those.' These surely intelligent and qualified academics were bewildered. Why would a poor delivery man have an incredibly rare artifact? It's a breathing mouthguard to keep him from snoring. His completely modern version that looks almost exactly like the ancient version is so his wife doesn't murder him in his sleep.

Same hardware. The Ancients weren't stupid. But we get taught like they were. And Archaeologists fucking haaaaaaaaaate hearing shit from the commons, despite most of what they dig up was used by the commons.

There are a whole bunch of sciences like that. Where someone comes in with a simple, but probably correct idea and they shit on them until either the someone gives up and toes the line, or the someone nuts up, and then they bury it for a few more years before they can 'come up with a radical new idea that fits the puzzle pieces.' Like Thor Hydreal proving you could, in fact, sail from Peru to Polynesia.

Not to say that Mu, Lemuria, Atlantis, or some truly advanced precusor civ existed. But the ancients were alot more competent and capable than most realize.

And thats the big takeaway that Graham is right about: the ancients were more advanced than we previously have given them credit for.

Maybe there wasn't a highly advanced Atlantean civilization, but they were more than likely using tools and techniques that were forgotten over time to build things like the Pyramids.

 

[Bacle]

And thats the big takeaway that Graham is right about: the ancients were more advanced than we previously have given them credit for.

Maybe there wasn't a highly advanced Atlantean civilization, but they were more than likely using tools and techniques that were forgotten over time to build things like the Pyramids.

What people need to understand about the Younger Dryas is that what ever was before it, got fucked multiple ways for about 1200 years.

If Atlantis or anything from before the Younger Dryas actually existed, it at most would have gotten to a early bronze age before...well, before a cometary trail we now know as one of our twice yearly meteor showers shotgunned Earth with the most devastating snowballs of all human history. It would have a lot of been Chelyabinsk/Tunguska level events over multiple parts of the Earth, at at least one fragment impacting Greenland, with the crater hidden by the icesheet till recently.

This would have then induced an Ice Age, and there is also some evidence of rapid, almost 'Day After Tomorrow" level cooling in the Arctic. And the cooling would have lasted for a while because of how much shit was blown into the atmosphere.

Living in deep caves would have been about the only way to stay warm on a long term basis in many parts of the world.

Atlantis, if it was on say a then above sea-level Azores Plateau (as Randall Carlson postulates) could have gotten wiped out in tsunami's and earthquakes, if a airburst didn't hit it directly.

And if it was on the Azores, it is possible mariners from what ever that civ was could have gotten to the Americas.

I think it is possible that there was even limited global interconnection with sea trade to an extent, with the Azorians (better, mre accurate name than Atlantians) perhaps trading with the early Egyptians and the proto-Mycenean/Greek cultures, maybe even the proto-Assyrians, and perhaps Nordic, Sub-Saharian Africa, and whatever was in Meso-America (which has a record of local civs getting civilization resets via VEI 6+ strato volcanoes with disturbing regularity), and perhaps even the Indus Valley and the proto-Polynesians.

However, whatever was before the Younger Dryas doesn't really matter a whole lot, it wasn't more advanced than at most a early bronze age civ for the biggest existing players, the evidence is barely there to begin with, and the stuff is mostly pursued to sell books and TV shows.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

However, whatever was before the Younger Dryas doesn't really matter a whole lot,

I'd disagree.

A Bronze Age that happened ten thousand years before the Bronze Age is basically the biggest historical discovery ever, especially if these civilisations were trading each other on a semi-global scale.

 

[Yinko]

they think things like this and ancient aliens is racist.

his Atlantis narrative

I suppose there's always the thought that we're not finding Atlantean oilwells because they didn't use oil, their techbase was based on something entirely different which they ran out of, then collapsed.

hey'd hit their industrial revolution before being destroyed. There'd probably be archaeological evidence of extensive mining otherwise, or even residue carbon in the atmosphere.

To cover the last three quotes. My understanding of the general idea is that he doesn't propose "Atlantis", rather he proposes something like a bronze or early iron age sea-faring culture akin to the Phoenicians. He references Atlantis because that is the catch-all term in popular culture for that specific situation, even if he admits that the term itself is entirely fictional. If their cities and civilizations were coastal then everything would have been erased with the rising of ocean levels. The Mediaranian used to be dry, the North Sea used to be dry, the Azores used to be a massive island like Iceland.

pyramid shapes are just so stable that people independently across the world realized it made for good building profiles.

True, and that is the common argument. But sometimes I wonder why it is that this Angle of Repose super stable shape always gets built with four sides. I mean, ok, you have the slope all nice and stable, but why not have it be a cone, why not three sides, or five, or seven, or whatever? It's always four, and usually orientated towards whatever the magnetic or polar-star north would have been when it was built.

 

[hyperspacewizard]

Quick thought during this time period wouldn’t the oceans be smaller and the coastlines longer so sea travel could be easier.

I remember in one episode he was talking about how some maps and connected them to the ancients having some idea of Antarctica so I don’t know how large it was during this time period but I wonder if someone starting on the South American coast could maybe find the Antarctica coast and follow it.

Is there a map that shows what would be dry land/ice back then?

 

[Skallagrim]

Is there a map that shows what would be dry land/ice back then?

Of course. There are many. Problem is that they show a snap-shot. Basically, as the ice sheets receded, the sea levels rose. But there were long periods where a lot of meltwater was 'trapped' in giant in-land lakes. So that gives you a window of (sometimes a few thousand years) where the ice has receded by quite a lot, and the sea levels are still pretty low, comparatively.

Here are some maps. You'll notice that they don't all agree on the exact coastline. For instance, these two go for a very maximalist interpretation (notice the shoreline of Ice Age Europe in particular):

These go for a more minimalist interpretation (notice the same European shore-line, and how reduced it is, comparatively):

This one shows an interetation of Europe with relatively much land left exposed in 16.000 BC, and relatively little ice coverage. I'm not sure how credible it is. But this shows the concept of periods where quite a lot of land is exposed, while a lot of meltwater is trapped in huge glacial lakes, keeping sea levels low. But don't be deceived: a lot of the nicely green land shown in this map would still be unforgiving tundra!

This gives you a rough impression of how far south the ice ever got:

The Mediaranian used to be dry

Not really. It was partially dry land, so more like a connected system of small seas, but it was still very much there. (See one of the above maps; it shows the situation very well.) And it was always open to the ocean. The last time the Strait of Gibraltar was closed was millions of years ago. But at the time, it was more like a giant canyon leading you to the open ocean, which is... really awesome to imagine.

Atlantis, if it was on say a then above sea-level Azores Plateau (as Randall Carlson postulates)

the Azores used to be a massive island like Iceland.

This is the most doubtful part of most Atlantis theories that focus on this kind "actually Atlantic Atlantis". The Azores Plateau is kilometers below sea level. But sea levels only used to be a few hundred meters lower. The Azores were never a giant island-- or at least not in any period approaching human history. Carlson and guys like him have "explanations" for this that dramatically misrepresent isostatic rebound in order to claim that the Azores used to be much higher and then sort of "sank". They literally imagine continents like giant see-saws: when the ice sheets melt on the northern end, this causes that end to rise due to isostatic rebound... so the southern end sinks! But, no, that's not how isostatic rebound works. It's an entirely imaginary process, invented to explain away the fact that the Azores were never a giant island.

Notice how none of the above maps have a giants Azores Island anywhere. It didn't exist. In fact, look at this:

That's the Azores. The dark blue stuff is what was additionally exposed during the last glacial maximum. That's it. That's all. There was no giant exposed plateau.

Quick thought during this time period wouldn’t the oceans be smaller and the coastlines longer so sea travel could be easier.

That's certainly true, and stone age people were inherently adventurous travellers. They went anywhere they figured they could get some good hunting or fishing. That's how people followed the icy coast of Beringia and ended up in the Americas. So that stuff certainly happened.

My understanding of the general idea is that he doesn't propose "Atlantis", rather he proposes something like a bronze or early iron age sea-faring culture akin to the Phoenicians. He references Atlantis because that is the catch-all term in popular culture for that specific situation, even if he admits that the term itself is entirely fictional.

Sure, but it still doesn't hold up. It's not impossible, and I'm open to evidence, but currently... there's no evidence. People back in the day could do more than we give them credit for, sure! And they could do some things quite a bit earlier than we'd figured. Yes. But back during the ice age, all the evidence we get points to hunter-gatherers with stone tools. There is zero indication of any advanced civilisation.

I think a more probable angle for historical revisionism here is that humans started doing pretty complex stuff as soon as they could, in the wake of the ice age. I think that an ice age, due to its highly fluctuating effect on which area is livable (that could shift within mere centuries!), prohibited a sedentary lifestyle. But as soon as it become pofitable to settle and build... humans began doing it. And some of them probably achieved more, and earlier, than we now imagine.

But that probably wasn't a lost bronze-age-level global civilisation. It was a bunch of separate groups of above-average clever people, who got shit done in the late neolithic.

 

[Robovski]

Just idle thought*, but perhaps this once civilization used up most of the native meteoric iron and pure copper deposits (which is why we had to start over with stone by and large) they could find and these have since been repurposed or simply eroded/oxydized away in the interveneing 10k+ years? It's fun to think about and how one could make a campaign setting.

*Not a serious one. Probably there would be burials or items lost in bogs/whatnot that could be found - metal objects would be pretty detectable to modern sensor tools unlike bone/leather/stone artifacts.

 

[Bacle]

Of course. There are many. Problem is that they show a snap-shot. Basically, as the ice sheets receded, the sea levels rose. But there were long periods where a lot of meltwater was 'trapped' in giant in-land lakes. So that gives you a window of (sometimes a few thousand years) where the ice has receded by quite a lot, and the sea levels are still pretty low, comparatively.

Here are some maps. You'll notice that they don't all agree on the exact coastline. For instance, these two go for a very maximalist interpretation (notice the shoreline of Ice Age Europe in particular):

These go for a more minimalist interpretation (notice the same European shore-line, and how reduced it is, comparatively):

This one shows an interetation of Europe with relatively much land left exposed in 16.000 BC, and relatively little ice coverage. I'm not sure how credible it is. But this shows the concept of periods where quite a lot of land is exposed, while a lot of meltwater is trapped in huge glacial lakes, keeping sea levels low. But don't be deceived: a lot of the nicely green land shown in this map would still be unforgiving tundra!

This gives you a rough impression of how far south the ice ever got:

Not really. It was partially dry land, so more like a connected system of small seas, but it was still very much there. (See one of the above maps; it shows the situation very well.) And it was always open to the ocean. The last time the Strait of Gibraltar was closed was millions of years ago. But at the time, it was more like a giant canyon leading you to the open ocean, which is... really awesome to imagine.




This is the most doubtful part of most Atlantis theories that focus on this kind "actually Atlantic Atlantis". The Azores Plateau is kilometers below sea level. But sea levels only used to be a few hundred meters lower. The Azores were never a giant island-- or at least not in any period approaching human history. Carlson and guys like him have "explanations" for this that dramatically misrepresent isostatic rebound in order to claim that the Azores used to be much higher and then sort of "sank". They literally imagine continents like giant see-saws: when the ice sheets melt on the northern end, this causes that end to rise due to isostatic rebound... so the southern end sinks! But, no, that's not how isostatic rebound works. It's an entirely imaginary process, invented to explain away the fact that the Azores were never a giant island.

Notice how none of the above maps have a giants Azores Island anywhere. It didn't exist. In fact, look at this:

That's the Azores. The dark blue stuff is what was additionally exposed during the last glacial maximum. That's it. That's all. There was no giant exposed plateau.



That's certainly true, and stone age people were inherently adventurous travellers. They went anywhere they figured they could get some good hunting or fishing. That's how people followed the icy coast of Beringia and ended up in the Americas. So that stuff certainly happened.



Sure, but it still doesn't hold up. It's not impossible, and I'm open to evidence, but currently... there's no evidence. People back in the day could do more than we give them credit for, sure! And they could do some things quite a bit earlier than we'd figured. Yes. But back during the ice age, all the evidence we get points to hunter-gatherers with stone tools. There is zero indication of any advanced civilisation.

I think a more probable angle for historical revisionism here is that humans started doing pretty complex stuff as soon as they could, in the wake of the ice age. I think that an ice age, due to its highly fluctuating effect on which area is livable (that could shift within mere centuries!), prohibited a sedentary lifestyle. But as soon as it become pofitable to settle and build... humans began doing it. And some of them probably achieved more, and earlier, than we now imagine.

But that probably wasn't a lost bronze-age-level global civilisation. It was a bunch of separate groups of above-average clever people, who got shit done in the late neolithic.

The Azores also are volcanic, and and there is evidence of large oceanic landslides on the flanks of the islands in the area around that time, so that map is likely inaccurate for the pre-Younger Dryas Azores

Particularly if we factor in possible airburst cometary fragments.

 

[Skallagrim]

The Azores also are volcanic, and and there is evidence of large oceanic landslides on the flanks of the islands in the area around that time, so that map is likely inaccurate for the pre-Younger Dryas Azores

Particularly if we factor in possible airburst cometary fragments.

That doesn't explain the difference between 'a few hundred meters' and 'four to eight kilometers'. What you're describing about volcanism and earthquakes/landslides could add a bit out on the margins, sure, but it doesn't explain a vanishing plateau roughly the size of Iceland. An impact event doesn't explain that either. In fact, that wouldn't cause anything of the sort. (It can explain broad destruction, yes. It can explain an impact winter, sure. But sinking plateaux? By several kilometers? That's just ridiculous.)

Bottom line: the Azores were never more than a group of islands. There was no Iceland-sized lump of dry land there. For that sort of thing, you can look to the European shoreline, where doggerland existed. Because that whole area is just a few hundred meters (mostly less than 200m) below present sea levels. That makes sense. "Super-Azorea" decidely does not.

 

[Bacle]

That doesn't explain the difference between 'a few hundred meters' and 'four to eight kilometers'. What you're describing about volcanism and earthquakes/landslides could add a bit out on the margins, sure, but it doesn't explain a vanishing plateau roughly the size of Iceland. An impact event doesn't explain that either. In fact, that wouldn't cause anything of the sort. (It can explain broad destruction, yes. It can explain an impact winter, sure. But sinking plateaux? By several kilometers? That's just ridiculous.)

Bottom line: the Azores were never more than a group of islands. There was no Iceland-sized lump of dry land there. For that sort of thing, you can look to the European shoreline, where doggerland existed. Because that whole area is just a few hundred meters (mostly less than 200m) below present sea levels. That makes sense. "Super-Azorea" decidely does not.

See, I am not sure that you need the whole large plateau situation for the Azores to be Atlantis.

Just a few more islands and more room to live on, and a trade/sea based culture that was akin to the Phoneticians.

I mean I guess Atlantis could be in Doggerland, but that seems like it is a colder area than the legends about Atlantis depict it as existing in.

 

[Yinko]

The Azores Plateau is kilometers below sea level.

The Earth's mantle is plastic. When ice melts it's not just water going into the ocean, it's weight on the crust being redistributed. Some land rises, some land falls. They've dredged parts of the Azores that are kilometers under water and found terrestrial plant matter and coastal formations that are too recent to have been from millions of years ago.