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Antarctica = Atlantis?

Howdy OTR

On those Javelins they were found in peat

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ ... i_19447778

Wooden artifacts are extremely rare, but wooden artifacts of this age, and hunting weapons at that, are nothing short of astonishing. The hunting tools, the oldest wooden weapons in existence, owe their perfect preservation to an airtight layer of peat covering the sediments in which the spears were found. Along with the spears, Thieme found a shorter weapon, which may have been used to stab game at close range; the butchered remains of more than ten horses; stone tools; and burned sediments that may mark the remains of several fireplaces.

On Coke bottles, glass is like a rock, virtually indestructible, I think your teacher was understating its survivalibility. We use to use Pepsi bottles to mark test pits and other filled in excavations as we knew that marker would tell all other future archaeologists "disturbed in the 20th century" and it would survive as long as pottery.

Soft materials can survive under water for a long time

http://www.nbbd.com/godo/history/windover/

I suspect we'll find more cities/cultures around the subcontinent and Med.

At sea if covered by sand they (wood) can survive for at least 25,000 years (based on timber survival). Depends on when we find really old wood on the bottom of the sea!
 
Hans, you are a professional archaeologist while I'm merely a layman who sits on the ash-heap of history, picking up old ideas, shaking them out and saying either "Now why ever did we ever get rid of this one?" or (more commonly) "Phew! I can see why we threw that one away!"

So I'm just a fellow who has fun speculating. I don't pretend to even a fraction your actual knowledge.

But let me ask you a layman's question:

In the late 19th Century there existed in my second hometown a nationally-famous resort hotel, the Altamont. It closed just previous to the First World War.

When the building was gutted hundreds or perhaps even thousands of pieces of Altamont china plates were disposed of down a nearby hillside. The majority of them are still there today.

By the early 1960s when my younger brother played there no unbroken pieces remained. Moreover, about 30 percent of these dishes had been reduced to gravel. I imagine the gravel accounts for 40 - 50 percent today.

How much do you think will remain 10,000 years from now? 15,000?
 
Goodness, what a waste of crockery.

Was the china covered up with soil, or just dumped and left out in the open? If the latter, then it's open to weather, animals, and marauding younger brothers (other people's if not yours ;) ).
 
lol i recall an early mornin chris evans show radio 1
they chucked 5 thousand mugs out of an upstairs window
aprently 5 survived and they mooted they were worth alot of money etc
found it funny but sort of fits the current thread
 
Analis said:
Memories of such cultures were not completely lost.
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Indeed. The dynastic Egyptians, who had archaeologists of their own, spoke of Zep Tepi ("the First Time").
 
Leaferne said:
Goodness, what a waste of crockery.

Was the china covered up with soil, or just dumped and left out in the open? If the latter, then it's open to weather, animals, and marauding younger brothers (other people's if not yours ;) ).
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Some of the better pieces were rescued early on by neighbors and are still in service among the older families. In fact, I've eaten from them.

Just out in the open. But as for "weather, animals and maurading younger brothers" (my own included) that's called HISTORY, and there's going to a lot more of that over the next hundred-plus centuries.

Which was of course my point.
 
Mine was this: I thought you were responding to Hanslune's comment:

On Coke bottles, glass is like a rock, virtually indestructible, I think your teacher was understating its survivalibility. We use to use Pepsi bottles to mark test pits and other filled in excavations as we knew that marker would tell all other future archaeologists "disturbed in the 20th century" and it would survive as long as pottery.

You countered with the crockery story; my point was that, as I understood Hanslune's post, the bottle would be buried, not left out in the open.
 
Leaferne said:
Mine was this: I thought you were responding to Hanslune's comment.....You countered with the crockery story; my point was that, as I understood Hanslune's post, the bottle would be buried, not left out in the open.
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Got you.

But many or even most of those very ancient items weren't originally buried. And I suspect that in another 150 centuries what remains of that crockery will be.
 
Howdy OTR and others

I was once an Archaeologist, just a keen amateur these days. Laymen are always appreciated especially when they bring fresh insight.

Survival of materials is very random and iffy, in some areas sediments will cover a site in others it will remain uncovered. Uncovered remains are usually reduced by weathering. It's estimated that only 1 out of 1,000,000 early humans were fossilized. Depends on the soil, geological events, weather and fate. Very little skeletal material came from Sumer as the soil there is acidic.

Hmmmm, "Indeed. The dynastic Egyptians, who had archaeologists of their own" did they? If you mean tomb robbers and looters yes, perhaps you meant a Manetho character type? Or did you mean like the modern day concept of an archaeologist? Source? Oh and what is it the people of Msr called these 'Archaeologists'?

The evidence we have is of the peopling of the Nile from those fleeing the slowly drying Sahara. The people became more settled and expanded their myths, they created their gods.

Bottle, yep buried. Even a glass bottle will get weathered if left out for a few tens of years. If the area is cold, thermal expansion will also reduce it to fragments - in a century or so. Buried however will last hundred of thousands of years until the land area is put under pressure. It would then be crushed but it would still be recognizable until subducted.
 
Hanslune said:
Laymen are always appreciated especially when they bring fresh insight.
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That should be the pennant of any sound Science.

Hmmmm, "Indeed. The dynastic Egyptians, who had archaeologists of their own" did they? If you mean tomb robbers and looters yes, perhaps you meant a Manetho character type? Or did you mean like the modern day concept of an archaeologist? Source? Oh and what is it the people of Msr called these 'Archaeologists'?
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Hans, it's been at least two decades since I did any serious readings into Egyptology, so I can't now quote you a source. But I read in more than one mainstream Egyptological text that the dynastic Egyptians had specialists whose job it was was to not only search out violated tombs, make them as right as possible and re-seal the place but possibly even more importantly to record what they found inside and to attempt to put these artifacts into historical context. I call that "archaeologist," though perhaps you would not.

I remember getting into trouble a year or so back on one of the lists when I referred to 15th Century excavating Classicists as "archaeologists." I was called to task for not calling them "antiquarians." Personally I think the distinction rather semantic.
 
Hello OTR

I understand your reference now. Yes in Egypt when peace and calm would return after periods of civil war and unrest members of the priest hoods would reseal tombs which had been robbed. In some cases they gathered together violated mummies and reburied them.

I wouldn't call them 'archaeologists' but dedicated priests/holymen.

Yep the term antiquarian would be correct. Archy would prefer to someone doing work in using a scientific methodology in a effort to understand the past. A number of 18th century 'diggers' might meet that definition. Modern archy probably got its start with the digging out of treasures from Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplonti and Stabiae.
 
Hanslune said:
Modern archy probably got its start with the digging out of treasures from Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplonti and Stabiae.
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When the Pompeii Library was discovered, fairly early on in the excavations, the locals started running off with the charred scrolls to use as charcoal. Those pioneering modern archaeologists promptly put paid to that one, realizing that someday we'd be able to decipher what they contained. We're just beginning to profit from that foresight today.

By the way, Hans, is there anything new from the Oxyrynchus (spelling?) front? I haven't seen anything new in at least a year.

And even that was the nonsense about 616 versus 666 in John's Revelation being treated as breaking news. In reality Church Father Irenaeus was aware of that dichotomy in the Second Century AD.
 
Hanslune said:
I wouldn't call them 'archaeologists' but dedicated priests/holymen.
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But being a "dedicated holyman/priest" doesn't neccessarily prevent a man from being an antiquarian or an archaeologist, as I'm fairly certain Jesuit scholars in both those fields will be only too happy to tell you. In fact I'd be surprised if Jesuit archaeologists don't consider themselves "priests" first.
 
Not much

http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/POxy/multi/index.html

With the new technology (slow and costly unfortunately) they will slowly read the library of that Roman gentleman. I suspect they'll find lots of Greek plays - perhaps some lost Roman works.

Intent and methodology is what differentiates the Egyptian priests from todays archaeologists. Archaeologists of course can be modern priest. One gentlemen I knew while working in Cyrpus was a Greek Orthodox priest who was a expert on ancient Alishiya pottery. Show him a shard and he could tell you when, where, how and why it was made and could usually tell you within a century of it manufacture date, where it was made and where you probably found it. Managed to fool him only once when we found some of the shards (a single vessel) at a site on the Syrian coast.

Couldn't comment on the date as I don't follow biblical archaeological issues closely.
 
Hanslune:>"There are a number of regional finds in Iran and the Harrapan civilization hasn't been fully understood."
I was not refering to the Gulf of Cambray discoveries, I read contradictory statements. But the dismissive evidence didn't convince me, and the retrieved artifacts shown on the photo, FT158 p.38, seemed genuine. Other structures along the Deccan Coast seem to have been properly checked (see FT same issue). And the Mergahwr city dates back to 8500 years. But I was refering to the Baluchistan civilization. While more recent, it was autonomous from the Hindus/Saravasti, and possibly predated it. First discoveries suggest that it may have been wealthier than Mesopotamia. But it escaped archaeologists until recently.
>"I suspect we'll find more cities/cultures around the subcontinent and Med."
I agree

>"not sure what you mean here, could you explain more?"
The genetic study I refered to (published in 2002) was little commented, but it is interesting that it didn't show much hybridization between African and Near Eastern calf. As should be expected if main trade routes from that time were terrestrial. The existence of important trading between Indians and Africans contradicts the usual historical stance.

I did not mention South or Cenrtral America (I suppose you refer to that), but the question of their knowledge is enigmatic too. Romans seem to have only poorly known of America, but the possibility that some people before them had a much greater awareness of it is supported by some facts.
 
Howdy Analis

Yep lots of things to be found around the subcontinent. India has tended to underdevelop its resources, Pakistan even worse. Part of that is rumored to have been the new states wanting to do the work themselves and not allowing outside organizations in (I'm going to check on that as it is only antedotal).

But I was refering to the Baluchistan civilization. Do you have link or cite to that?

The Cattle study, yes that is interesting but then they may not have shipped cattle around, it may also have been that certain breeds did better in the local climates/pests and mixing wasn't a good idea. Or the hybreds have died out before today.

Roman knowledge of Americas? None that I'm aware of, what evidence do you feel supports a Roman knowledge of the new world?
 
Hanslune said:
Roman knowledge of Americas? None that I'm aware of, what evidence do you feel supports a Roman knowledge of the new world?
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In 1976 a diver named Jose Roberto Texiera reportedly brought up two intact Roman amphora from Guanabara Bay, near Rio de Janiero. They were afterwards dated to the Second Century B. C.

Moreover, in 1982 Robert Marx claimed he'd discovered thousands of shards, including hundreds of amphora necks, in the same location.
 
That story has been blowing around for a few decades. Unfortunately no shard or amphora were ever tested for age, an expert dated the amphora by styling to 3 AD but its not known where the sample came from, nor was a in situ excavation made, nor a paper presented. Some points

They used amphora up until the 17th century (barrels are expensive) in Portuguese and Spanish ships for the transport of Olive oil and wine.

Ships from that area often used river stones to ballast the ship, the river stones were often dug up near the port and were often full of shards-centuries of shards.

The placing of European Amphora for a hoax is always possible as no vessel was found. Although a Roman ship might have made such a crossing it would seem it had no lasting effect on natives, Rome or other civilizations.

The story remains an interesting story that keeps resurfacing year after year. Unless a excavation is done it remains an unconfirmed story.
 
A bit more on the Cambay finds

http://www.intersurf.com/~chalcedony/geofact.html

Artifacts or Geofacts? Alternative Interpretations of Items from the Gulf of Cambay.

Final Note

It must be remembered, that it can be quite easy and is quite common for nongeologists to be confused by natural rock formations. When confronted with natural phenomenon they are unfamiliar with, even the best of scientists can be mislead. A case in point in which I was personally involved concerned some magnetic anomalies found off of Breton Island, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. On the basis of very well defined magnetic anomalies, it was presumed that submerged shipwrecks existed offshore of Breton Island at five locations. Preliminary testing of these magnetic anomalies found no evidence of cultural material, except large concentrations of calcareous nodules that possibly could be interpreted as ballast. A detail study of the nodules showed that they were far too soft to have been ballast and based upon radium isotopes were far to young, only five to eight years old, to be the result of historic shipwrecks. Petrographic and isotopic analyses of the alleged ballast showed it to be carbonate concretions created by the precipitation of calcium carbonate as the result of the oxidation of methane seeping from underlying sedimentary strata. It was determined that these concretions were also magnetic from the formation of magnetic iron-bearing minerals contemporaneous with the precipitation of the carbonate minerals. The result of the investigations clearly showed that what well-trained archaeologists interpreted to be magnetic anomalies and ballast associated with shipwrecks, in fact, were "pseudo-shipwrecks" created by natural processes associated with the degradation of hydrocarbon seeping naturally into the sea floor (Irion and Heinrich 1986).

For a classic example of people confusing natural concretions with man-made objects, go read Heinrich (1996), "The Mysterious Origins of Man: The South African Grooved Sphere Controversy".
 
Hans, here's a story that will amuse you.

A century or so ago an "ancient" coin was unearthed in Elgin, Illinois. Badly corroded, the coin had an unreadable "hieroglyphic" inscription around its circumference.

The coin wound up in the local historical museum, where it remained on display for many years as an unexplainable anomaly.

But around the middle of the 20th Century a 12-year-old boy realized that he could actually read the inscription.

It was in modern English.

The letters read:

"A souvenir of your visit to the Elgin Watch Works."
 
Very good. Do you have a cite for that? I know a few people who'd enjoy adding that to their websites?
 
Hanslune said:
Do you have a cite for that? I know a few people who'd enjoy adding that to their websites?
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Hans, this was a feature article in FATE magazine circa 35 years ago. It had the entire story plus photographs of both the corroded "ancient" coin and the modern "advertizing" one side by side, showing that they are actually the same.

Let me see what I can Google tomorrow.
 
But I was refering to the Baluchistan civilization. Do you have a link or cite to that?

No link, there were mentions of it in papers (and maybe FT, but I hadn't noted the issue). I watched a very interesting TV documentary, very complete with good pictures. Probably they are the same than the regional finds in Iran you mentiooned

I said that I didn't think that Romans had any elaborate knowledge of America; their authors only repeated the Greeks. We don't know if they took them very seriously. The history of Brazilian amphoras is an old sea-serpent. What annoys me is that no scholar took the trouble to check, like in many other instances. But I agree that it would be more probably evidence of errand ships than regular trade ways.
 
How do you know no one checked? I suspect some did but there was nothing to write a paper about.

Scholars use graduate students to check on "fringe" things, protects them from ridicule for using precious funds to investigate junk but it does allow them to check on interesting finds. If something does happen to show up then they'll step in. Scientists are just like other people, you have believers mixed in with them.

You'd have to have very persistent sailors to go there plus the story turned out to have a lot of 'holes".

Sorry Analis I've lost the meaning of the request, what did you need about the Baluchistan civ?
 
This could turn out to be another Thunderbird photo in the making, but I'm sure this one actually exists.
Some years ago I remember FT featuring a photo of Antarctica taken using ground/ice penetrating radar which showed something like Plato's description of Atlantis 1400 metres under the ice :- two perfect circles, one inside the other, quartered by two perfectly straight lines crossing at right angles.
I can't remember exactly what context it was being featured in but there are Hapgood's tectonic theories, which suggest the plates might have moved at far faster rates in the past, and various catastrophist theories involving the planet tilting which could explain how this structure ended up under the ice.
I have searched every issue of FT I've got - 14 years worth - and can't find it !! :headbutt: Does anybody out there have an inkling what I'm on about?
 
Thanks guys ! :D
Pietro, the blogspot image could just be the one. My memory might be playing tricks on me but I seem to recall that the photo was in B&W and there was a lot less topography in it. However although it may not be the photo, it must be the actual feature that was in it, unless of course there are two Atlantises under the ice - no, lets not go there, one's trouble enough! ;)
 
No, I am thinking of two circles quartered by two straight lines, closely corresponding with Plato's description of Atlantis. Not easily confused with a lake, I would have thought. :p
 
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