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EnnWhyCee t1_ix9r11g wrote

Reply to comment by Realistic_Truck in TIL the Great Pyramid of Giza is not the largest pyramid in the world, Great Pyramid of Cholula, also known as Tlachihualtepetl, is the largest archaeological site of a pyramid in the New World, as well as the largest pyramid by volume known to exist in the world today. by Mind-Matters-Not

How so?

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blackday44 t1_ixa4rtk wrote

I'm only partway through the series, but.... the host is going from ancient monument to ancient monument pointing out stuff that archaeologists have missed/dismissed because of that pesky 'science'. He seems to be building up (ba dam tish) to some kind of global flood theory.

Pretty sure that our ancestors built pyramids because that's the best way to pile rocks so they stay up. And a global flood is literally not possible (science!) But seeing as how settlements are typically built at a water source, most of those settlements have probably flooded at some point, so pretty much all mythologies have a flood story.

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Caspiu5 t1_ixaf8nl wrote

I'm pretty sure he is building up to the Younger-Dryas impact theory. Something like a series of meteor impacts 12,000 years ago caused rapid changes in climate. It's not just about a "flood" its that during the last ice age the sea level was hundreds of feet lower. Since humans like to build on the coasts this would have drowned any existing ancient civilizaitons

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dew22 t1_ixaoprt wrote

Correct he’s building to the YDIH and then claims, with out evidence, that there was civilization that existed and spread their knowledge all over the world. He does this with zero evidence to support the idea of a lost civilization

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StaySchwifty420 t1_ixato2b wrote

He doesn’t do this without evidence. He uses myths from across different cultures, and temples and their relation to astronomy to suggest a lot of these different structures are older than believed. It’s fine to not believe that is sufficient evidence, but to pretend he just came up with it and didn’t try to back it up with evidence is just false.

Also, it doesn’t seem like he’s saying there is a single lost civilization, but several that were ended due to the climate disaster.

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dew22 t1_ixav0g1 wrote

He definitely just came up with it any number of civilizations could independently build structures in relation to astronomical bodies, they can all see the sky, it’s a huge stretch to claim it’s because a lost civilization told them too. There is no physical evidence to back up his claims.

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stench_montana t1_ixawlct wrote

You're really framing this in a strawman way. He does at times suggest that leap, but he more often is pointing out valid evidence of structures that go against the modern timeline of progress and is saying the current timeline is incorrect. Gobekli Tepe and the megalithic templea at Malta are both worth studying much more and in my eyes are strong evidence to reconsider the timeline of human technological capability.

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MaximilienHoneywell t1_ixb9cc7 wrote

To be fair, all Graham Hancock ever does is strawman “mainstream” archaeology.

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stench_montana t1_ixbmecs wrote

He definitely makes too many leaps, like constantly. The whole "Let's talk about Atlantis" moment made me cringe during the series. There is some valid evidence of interesting things from longer ago than the 6000 years currently accepted.

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StaySchwifty420 t1_ixb06wt wrote

Yeah that’s not what is claimed at all though. It seems like you’re trying very hard to strawman the position. I’d suggest actually watching it or at least trying to understand what is being stated before jumping to “he just made it all up”.

He gives a few speculations on why they might have built these structures this way, but none of them were “some ancient civilization told them to.”

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eternalsteelfan t1_ixau54r wrote

Objectively: he’s been claiming for a long time that civilization is much older than we think and there were advanced civilizations that were wiped out by some cataclysm and the ancient, sophisticated wonders were signs that some history and methods were passed down orally by survivors. The rise of the Younger Dryas Impact could be seen as something that corroborates (or simply coincides with) his theory as well as the ever-increasing “age” of civilization as seen in Gobekli Tepi and similar sites. Subjectively: There are a lot of naysayers, but it’s fair to say that over the past few years his theories have generally looked better and better. I think he’s a bit off the deep end with how “advanced” he proposes they were, but I think it’s very interesting (and plausible) there were civilizations lost to time. Even if we vanished, there’d be no signs left after ten thousand years and the Younger Dryas was like 12,000 years ago.

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dew22 t1_ixaujjl wrote

Is it plausible? Of course but there’s no physical evidence for it and then the claim that they sailed all over the world spreading knowledge to other civilizations, yeah his conjecture is bullshit. The time to believe in ancient lost civilizations is when there is evidence to back it up, not a crackpot journalist making claims to sell bullshit books

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eternalsteelfan t1_ixb2pea wrote

Again, 12000 years ago, not exactly a possibility for a ton of physical evidence. Things do, suspiciously, keep getting older…

I think the strong reactions, like yours, to the mere notion that it’s possible we don’t know everything about ancient history is even more fascinating than the theories, however outlandish.

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dew22 t1_ixb3j1w wrote

Yes, as new evidence is discovered we change and adapt our theories to fit the evidence, that’s how science works. The time to believe something is when there’s evidence, pardon me for not wanting to take a journalist at his word.

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eternalsteelfan t1_ixb4kdp wrote

The farther you go back, the more abstract things get. There is “evidence”, it’s a matter of if you believe it and how you interpret it. Someone sees an ancient road buried under the sea, others see a rock formation.

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dew22 t1_ixb510l wrote

Which is why I default to scientific consensus, and the scientific consensus around the Bimini Road is that it’s a naturally occurring geological formation

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stench_montana t1_ixawuhu wrote

Gobekli Tepi IS the evidence for it. What do you need, a VHS and guidebook?

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Caspiu5 t1_ixb0nro wrote

The Bimini Road, a uniform and leveled structure dozens of feet below sea level, consistent with what sea levels would have been during the last ice age, is enough evidence for me that the age of civilization and the age of many of our great megoliths is worth further examination

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eternalsteelfan t1_ixb3588 wrote

Look into the water erosion questions about the Sphinx and Robert Schoch. Pretty interesting stuff and also branded “fringe”.

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Caspiu5 t1_ixb5531 wrote

The other thing we are battling against is that we know historical Christianity and Islam (other regions i'm sure as well) were masters at building on top of historical sites, burying them and replacing the older cultures.

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eternalsteelfan t1_ixbbnjr wrote

Destructions of libraries is another aspect; Viking raids, library of Alexandria, sack of Baghdad.

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pair_o_socks t1_ixadxjl wrote

He thinks that once the ice age ended, that global sea levels rose almost 400 ft, flooding most of the existing human settlements and cities. He had to assume that there was some cataclysmic event that caused the ice to melt relatively suddenly.

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EnnWhyCee t1_ixadvnx wrote

I agree he tried to build it up to a future flood, but I have to disagree on the premise as you state it.

I understood him primarily describing how cultures could have existed long before modern archeologists theorize. I think where he describes a future flood is probably just a silly scare tactic for viewership.

I think if you continue through the series you'll see more what I'm talking about. I didn't start to enjoy it more until maybe halfway through.

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MarcusForrest t1_ixhf9qk wrote

This recent thread is an excellent start - as is this other thread and also this excellent thread

 

In short,

  • He doesn't really give any evidence for his claims, only a lot of "what ifs"
  • He doesn't seem to understand how science works. He claims archeologists oppose his theory, because it's "an attack against the current paradigm, and archeologists are reluctant to change the paradigm", but that's simply untrue. The paradigm changes constantly every time new evidence is discovered.
  • His formula is unscientific;
  • Hancock describes something cool in vague, romanticized terms. This is often done in the first person in a journalistic style to provide an air of legitimacy without needing to be thorough
  • Hancock asserts the thing's mysterious nature. He does this actively by showing how things archaeologists said 100 years ago (or never said at all!) fail to explain the thing, or passively by ignoring decades of research, positioning himself as the first person to ask these questions.
  • Hancock offers an additional, enticing observation that, having had all other context stripped away, functions as the single knowable fact
  • Hancock suggests his kooky hyper-diffusionist explanation for that observation that only makes sense if the handful of observations he's provided are the only ones you know

Because Hancock has stripped away all context for his observations, he can make whatever claims he wants. And because most readers have no familiarity with archaeological literature outside their high school history books, they don't know how much information Hancock is not telling them.

 

More recently, Hancock has shifted to theories that violate that first scientific fundamental. His book America Before is the culmination of his obsession with the Younger Dryas Impact Theory.

 

Sensationalized unproven claims while dismissing science is absolutely bad and should not be encouraged.

 

^(Note: 95% of this comment isn't my own stuff, but copy-pasted from the linked threads)

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EnnWhyCee t1_ixhgx7g wrote

It's entertainment. I don't read too much into it. It aligns with my own thoughts that there must have been some other civilization before the current. I don't care if people thinks it's debunked, because honestly nobody knows for certain. It's a fun thing to think about that doesn't harm anyone.

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