I’m not sure that the purpose of the Olmec heads is truly interesting, but on a much grander scale, researchers are baffled by the disappearance of that civilization. Their abandonment of their home turf left a large area basically unoccupied for centuries, which would not be the case if they had been conquered. There are theories, but if you assembled the top five experts on the subject, you would probably get five different speculations. The movement of ancient civilizations usually had to do with a change in the availability of resources: volcanic ash poisons the soil, rivers get flooded or are reduced in flow, game gets hunted and fished out, etc. The ancient tribes moved on if there was no longer a source of food and water to sustain their population. The explanation is probably something like those examples, but we have little clue to the exact details.
The Top 7 Ancient Mysteries That We’ve Never Solved
GobeklTepe seems to not be unique in terms of structures that predate what was thought to be ancient times. This may be due to what seems to be a misunderstanding of hunter/gatherer societies, as many/most were nowhere near as nomadic as seems to be the common view. The issue I suppose in whether they could have built GobekiTepe, and I guess it depends over how long it was built, is whether any hunter/gatherer society could have been expected to be populated enough to build it.
While archaeologists often like to claim they have it all figured out, it is far from the truth. Hey, they claim they’re experts so they have to act like it. They have tons of books to sell so leaves no room for guesswork.
This is the reason that new discoveries are always made showing that what we once thought was wrong. Or what we were told at least. Physicists tend to do this a lot too, but at least a lot of them only claim to be theoretical. But when an archaeologist claim a rock was used for human sacrifice, we’re supposed to accept it without question.
It’s hard to keep track of the things they keep flipping on. They were certain that no human was ever in the Americas until 13,000 years ago, but now they accept that there is proof that human were here at least 10,000 years earlier if not sooner. They claimed the city of Troy was only a myth until it was recently discovered.
Basically, we know very little about our past which shouldn’t be surprising. We have found very little of our past and the experts have made huge assumptions based on almost no information. Add to this that most of our ancestors lived on the coast and their settlements are mostly underwater makes it that much harder. Plus, the Sahara was a green paradise around 8000 years ago and you can bet our ancestors thrived in that region. We have basically not been able to explore anything under that desert because of the difficulties in the landscape as well as militant dangers.
Michael Cremo wrote a big (and rather dry and boring book) on this called Forbidden Archaeology. Not a surprise that Wikipedia which takes scientific conservatism to beyond where it seems that even most mainstream scientists go merely says that ‘Michael Cremo attended George Washington University from 1966-1968.’
In fact, Michael Cremo, although not a degreed archaeologist is a member of the World Archaeological Congress and the European Association of Archaeologists. I’m not an archaeologist myself obviously but Forbidden Archaeology is so dry and boring that he definetely sounded like he knows his stuff.
Anyway, some of his claims are out still way out there and he probably makes too much of ancient Vedic texts, but, for instance, mainstream archaeologists actually don’t rule out the possibility that civilizations existed on earth 2 billion or so years ago.
On this point however, in regards to GobekliTepe, I think you are overly dismissive of what archaeologists and other scientists (paleontoligists) actually do know. I don’t think there is any reason to dismiss bone/teeth fragments and other evidence that show whether a society was sedentary (farming) or nomadic (hunter/gatherer) or a combination, which happened during the transition.
I should have read Scoopy’s write-up to the article first, because it does explain hunter/gatherer societies accurately, that for the most part they did stay in the same area that was basically their camp.
So, the issue here in terms of a hunter/gatherer society building GoblekiTepi is indeed two fold: depending on how large the builders stayed there: 1.Was the ‘carrying capacity’ of the area sustaining enough for food (energy) for a large enough society, 2.If this society was larger than generally believed a hunter/gatherer society could govern itself, how did they do this? Maybe they had some form of government that wasn’t strictly hierarchical which, given the communications technology available at the time, would probably have had to have been the case.
I would argue that “archaeologists often like to claim they have it all figured out” is an absurd statement.
Individual people might say that, but as a whole, the profession has a bunch of theories, some more plausible than others, and they are widely recognized by archaeologists as theories, not facts.
There was a flurry of interest during the Kon Tiki era but we still aren’t sure of the origins of Polynesia or how they were able to navigate the vast Pacific carrying people, animals and plants
Or why they could do it but the professor couldn’t! 🙂
If they weren’t able to navigate (or get lucky) they floated off and died. We hear about the successes, not about the failures. No big mystery about it.
glad you got it solved, thanks, collect your nobel prize.
Finally, some recognition! Thanks.
Next, I will derive a closed-form expression relating period to frequency. Unless, of course, Von Daniken has me scooped here.
It’s probably the mercury and not the traps in the Chinese emperor tomb. If there are still working traps after thousands of years, that would be amazing. Perhaps a false floor and pit would still work, but none of that Indiana Jones nonsense