A World Future that we wouldn't see

All you're doing is telling me all of human history, all our buildings and myths, have all occurred in the last 12,000ish years. I don't mean that as an insult it's just I disagree. I think there is evidence of a pre 12,000 BC civilisation that existed in the last epoch of environmental stability and you'll find it in some of our myths and some stone works. The difference is the same myths and stone works are claimed by the orthodox to be built in this epoch of environmental stability using techniques lost to time whereas I think they're the remnants of a civilisation that existed in the last epoch of environmental stability, so pre 12,000 BC, that got wiped. I also think you find evidence of it in Easter Island. Here's a picture of some buried moai.

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First, the orthodox view is Easter Island was first inhabited in 1200AD and the first Europeans turned up in 1722AD. So, a little over 500 years to rock up, get settled, and build loads of maoi, some of which are buried to around about 5 metres or so going off that first picture. According to the linked article, there's about 150 of them in this condition and they were covered by shifting soils and sediments. https://mymodernmet.com/easter-island-heads-have-bodies/

In a tropical environment, and Easter Island is close to that having a sub-tropical climate, it takes about 200 years to create 1 cm of soil. When you have 5 metres of soil that process is going to take 100,000 years. Let's say it took them 100 years to carve and place the 150 maoi we now see buried which leaves 400 years for the accumulation of 5 metres of soil. How? Where does all that soil come from in such a short period of time?

Additionally, that second photo doesn't fit a description of gradual soil accumulation. The carved back is exactly the same from the lower shoulders down, no gradation of erosion. It's a clear dividing line. That suggests to me that the soil ended up to that height all at once, protecting the carved back and leaving the upper shoulders and head exposed which subsequently underwent erosion.

You see, when it's a fact that it takes 100,000 years for 5 metres of soil to accumulate and it's a fact that maoi buried in that soil were only carved within the last 700-800 years, something isn't quite adding up somewhere.

 

But you've said it yourself. They were buried by shifting soils. Material moved by processes of erosion, weathering, colluviation, overland flow. Soil isn't static, it gets moved around. At the time that the Statues were erected, Easter Island was heavily forested. Various processes removed all of those trees. Trees help prevent soil erosion.

The accumulation and depth of soil is dependant on a variety of factors. As a general rule you can expect soils to be shallower at the top of a slope and deeper at the bottom. If it takes 200 years to form 1cm of soil, we should expect to find Roman archaeology at a depth of approximately 7.5 to 10cm everywhere in this country. But I would expect to remove perhaps 30cm of overburden before being able to positively identify any archaeology in lowland parts of this country, sometimes more, sometimes less. In upland areas it might be less.

You told me I was arrogant earlier but do you not think its arrogant to dismiss out of hand the scientifically confirmed, peer reviewed work of academics and researchers based on field observations, experimental recreation, and systematic comparison? Why are you so opposed to what you term the 'orthodox' view?

If this civilisation that you're searching for existed, we would have found it by now, radiocarbon dated it, and confirmed its existence. We have fossil evidence of creatures that lived millions of years ago, why would we be hiding this civilisation?

 

Just to add to that, no one is saying that all of human achievement occurred in the last 12000 years. There is evidence for tool production, art, and structures from long before that period. You don't have to look for mythical places and lost civilisations to see that.

 

I hope you two keep on disagreeing for another week at least because this is interesting stuff.

 

Its keeping my mind off you know what.

 

It's absolutely fascinating and that's before anyone has even started the possibility that aliens put these structures there yet!

 

I'm not massively opposed to the orthodox view. I think it has a lot of stuff right. I also think it has a lot of stuff wrong. Every generation has thought they had the answers and were correct in their view and in many instances were actually proven wrong by discoveries made by later generations. I think it would be absurd to not recognise that same process is going on right now and any and all models we have of reality are just a model and can change with new evidence. Or the interpretation of evidence. And one reason why orthodox views should be challenged is so dogma doesn't take hold. And can you imagine where we'd be now if no-one question the orthodox view of things? That's what good science does, it questions things, it doesn't claim to know all the answers.

Speaking of evidence, according to these sites, it takes 200 years to make 1cm of soil, or 50 years an inch.
https://socratic.org/questions/how-...orm-and-why-we-should-be-concerned-about-losi
https://soilsmatter.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/soil-formation/
https://www.soils4teachers.org/lessons-and-activities/teachers-guide/soil-formation

How can they be so far out on their figures? The rate of accumulation at Easter Island works out at 1.25 cm of soil every year which is 100 times faster than what I'm reading in those links. I think I'll believe what they are saying thanks when it comes to this evidence and say there is no way you can get 5 metres of soil accumulation in 400 years. If you can find me a mechanism that can achieve this and provide a link, I'm all in.

And any thoughts regarding the lack of gradation on the erosion on the statue's back? What do you think it infers, a gradual or sudden accumulation of soil?
Any thoughts on why Plato got the date of a massive cataclysm correct?

One of the reasons that the orthodox view gets a bad rep at times is because it ignores these types of questions. I've asked the Plato one nearly every post I've made and you constantly swerve it. Why?

 

Zecharia Stitchen and Erik Von Daniken incoming.

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I love this mans hair like.

 

The orthodox view doesn't get a bad rep. Its proper, scientifically researched stuff.

I haven't swerved anything. Plato didn't get the date of a cataclysm correct. I have been through the pitfalls if relying on ancient texts of this type several times and what Plato meant by 10000 years. The fact that there was an event such as a large meteor strike is coincidence. Here's an article talking about the nature (and accuracy) of Plato's writing, the lack of geological and oceanographic evidence for the former existence of a large land mass outside the Pillars of Hercules, the likelihood that what he was referring to was Minoan civilisation or Thera, and that the chronology in his story doesn't work.
https://saleonard.people.ysu.edu/PlatosAtlantis.html

Here's another very fair one critiquing the Atlantis theories. If the sites in Doñana represent Atlantis, then it was Bronze Age and not 12,000years ago at all.
https://www.livescience.com/64176-lost-city-atlantis-spain.html

Soils. Yes, soils form slowly but, as I've said, and as the article clearly states, they get moved around. This article I've linked to below clearly states that the Easter Island heads were buried by successive mass transit deposits, or landslides. There will be a scientific paper somewhere that provides further detail but I'm not massively familiar with where that will have been published. https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2017/07/26/famous-easter-island-heads-have-hidden-bodies/

For more on soil development, the ways in which soil can be transported, and other archaeological site formation processes I would suggest Brothwell and Pollard's Handbook of Archaeological Sciences, Greene and Moore's Archaeology; an Introduction, or Ellis' Archaeological Method and Theory as good starting points.

Rates of erosion on the statue will depend on the rapidity with which it was buried (which is likely to be quickly in mass transit events) the burial conditions, the characteristics of the stone from which it is constructed.

Here's a link to an article in the journal Science, which presents the Radiocarbon evidence from Easter Island and demonstrates the date at which it was settled. I believe there is a more recent article that refines those dates but the two are more or less in accordance.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/311/5767/1603.short

Finally, I agree that challenging intellectual dogma is imperative in new research. Indeed, it's something that I try to do at every opportunity. However, if you are genuinely interested in this stuff, I would strongly urge you to look more closely at the mainstream archaeological work in the form of the available grey literature, excavation reports, published monographs etc.

 

Plato did get the date of a cataclysm correct mate, he said it occurred 10,000 years before him. Not 5,000, not 20,000, but 10,000. Any other date, it's not matching up to planetry catastrophe time and I'm canny certain that he knew how to count and what he meant when he said 10,000 years ago. If someone wishes to say, well you can't rey on that as Plato didn't really mean that and it's just a coincidence about the date, fair enough. I disagree. Actually, I think that takes evidence and shunts it about a bit to make it fit a pre existing theory. But not a lot I can do if you want to take that position and ignore the possibility that this was a record of an actual event and dismiss it as coincidence.

What is weird though is I bet you accept Herodotus dates for the pyramid though, none of those pitfalls of relying on ancient texts there. And just because a pyramid is there, it doesn't mean Herodutus was correct.

That Forbes article doesn't explain anything, it just says things without anything backing it up and it is far removed from every other explanation as to the rate of soil accumulation I've found. If it has nothing to back it up. But let's say it was a landslide. Look at this photo, look at the kind of area we're talking about, and then tell me where 5 metres of soil come from in a landslide. The statues aren't that far off the top of the island and I fail to see from this photo where all that material comes from. And if it was a landslide, it had to be on a vast scale if it covered 150 statues.

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You see, it's all well and good to say mass transit event or landslide but without explaining where the material came from and how it covers such a large area with a uniform layer height wise which is roughly 5 metres over 150 statues, it explains nothing. Give me the details.

 

Mate, I'm sorry, you are way off. I know all about rates of soil accumulation and how they move. Go to bajr.org and search for Guide 48 'An Introduction to Geo-archaeology and Soil Micromorphology'. Although the text book references that I put in my previous post will also explain that. That will explain most of what you need to know. The mass transit event is a real thing and yes, it was on a massive scale. The explanations in the Forbes article are completely plausible and, in fact, the most likely explanation. To believe that they're not you have to deny the radiocarbon dates and they are beyond doubt. In the photos you've posted it's quite clear that the material came from further up the slope- I've already posted about the impact of deforestation on soil erosion.

Here's another article, from the University of California at Santa Barbara, confirming that the material burying the statues was moved there by natural processes.
https://geog.ucsb.edu/easter-island-heads-have-great-bodies/
You can view much of the work on Easter Island at eisp.org

I've never worked at Easter Island, and I've tried not to be a dick about this, but this is what I do for a living. I have been a professional archaeologist for 15 years and all of those articles that I've posted are accurate and well-researched.

 

Im not that technical with soil but I was field studies instructor for key stage 2 kids a while back so have a rudimentary understanding of how soils form and how they are transported. I'm specifically interested in the mechanics of the process at Easter Island. Handily, you "know all about rates of soil accumulation and how they move" so hopefully you'll be able to help me with some of the details I find baffling. Take a look at this.

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From inside the Rano Raraku crater. Notice the statue heads popping up out of the ground, all buried to the same height as those on the outside slope.

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Obviously from outside the crater. You can see the maoi on the bottom left on the southern slope and the quarry face where they were carved from. I got it wrong they're not basalt, there from a volcanic tuff which makes cutting much easier, it's the rest of the crater that the moai stand on that is the harder rock. As for that link, it states; "The dirt and detritus partially burying the statues was washed down from above". So what was the dirt and detrius made of before it became the soil we see today. Was it originally organic matter, trees, grasses and the like or was it the rock itself? And how long did the original material take to become soil? And I'm guessing it travelled down the inner and outer slopes at the same rate seeing as the maoi are buried to the same height?

https://www.the-compost-gardener.com/soil.html "Soil formation is a long slow process. It's estimated that an inch of soil takes 500 to 1000 years to form."
https://www.soils.org/about-soils/basics "In fact, one inch of topsoil can take several hundred years or more to develop."
https://www.soils4teachers.org/lessons-and-activities/teachers-guide/soil-formation "It can take over 500 years to form an inch of topsoil on the surface!"
https://soilsmatter.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/soil-formation/ "We say that it takes 500 to thousands of years to create an inch of topsoil. The reason is that soil is often derived from rock. The rock has to be broken into small pieces first. This happens by physical weathering: things like freezing and thawing in colder climates, and chemical weathering in warmer climates."

If all these are wrong and it's possible for soil to be created at a faster rate I'll have a link thanks.

That article didn't offer an explanation as to why the accumulation rate is so fast in regards to articles I've found and linked nor did it mention a mass transit event. In your post you said "The mass transit event is a real thing and yes, it was on a massive scale." Why isn't that mentioned in the article? The only mass transit event I could see being applicable in this location is a landslide and if it was massive, how come it didn't knock all the statues over? In fact loads of them are standing upright and one or two even lean backwards towards the crater. That doesn't seem feasible to me.

 

But it's not talking about soil creation, its talking about soil movement. The depth of soil is not uniform across the planet or even across one landscape, because it gets moved around by things. The original article referred to successive mass transit events, so they weren't necessarily buried in one go. I believe at least some of the statues were anchored into the bedrock which could be why they weren't knocked over. I haven't worked on this project, but none of the theory quoted in any of these articles is implausible. In fact, it's completely plausible.

If you want to interrogate it further, you will have to seek out the original excavation reports and the scientific literature. I've had a quick look for some of this and I can't find it straight away, it's possible that its hidden behind a paywall as a lot of archaeological research is when its put online. However, you might be able to find something from the eisp.org website.

In fact this is why a lot of these ideas about Atlantis, aliens etc are so popular. They are easy to access online, whereas the real work is hidden away behind paywalls and inaccessible jargon so people turn to and, unfortunately, believe the easily accessible stuff. The truth is, as they say, often stranger than fiction so if you spend a little time, and maybe money, you will find out what you want to know and maybe find something truly interesting.

Edit: just to add, the USCB article states that they are buried to varying depths and even contains photos showing them buried to varying depths.

 

Wow what a fantastic thread. Thanks to all contributors so far.

 

If they managed to learn our technology maybe advance faster.

Gotta remember the amount of knowledge that was burned in the name of religion.....

Never know may have been some very important things burnt over that time.

 

It's not aliens but ancient astronomer theorists say..

It's Aliens

 

I concur. Absolutely fascinating. Sandy Camel and The Norton Cat.....thank you

 

I know what you mean about finding info, I've gone so far as to look for the soil analysis and can't even find out if any was done. I still disagree about how plausible an explanation it is though. Even if we're going down the soil movement path, you still have to explain where it was originally and how it moved. I think the deforestation position is lacking due to the location of the statues. If you look at that slope, you aren't getting many trees on it imo and certainly not enough to create a 5m landslip. I'll describe it as that as a landslide seems far too dramatic for such a short distance.

But let's say there were enough trees growing in enough soil, just to test some plausibility . The workers decide to cut them down as they don't need a whole load of trees on a slope above where there going to move the maoi to so down they come and the workers then get quarrying and carving. At some later point, say 200ish years later, they have 150 maoi stored on the inner and outer slopes and then oh no, disaster strikes. The tree roots have rotted away and the land above them gives way and buries the moai up to a height of 5ish metres. And it does it on the inside slope of the crater as well. Hmmm. So it looks like we actually needed a forest on both slopes to start with and two land slips that occur at the same time.

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A pic from a New Zealand crater with trees, just for a bit help visualising the whole cut down tree, land slip thing. And a drone from Easter Island to get a bit of an idea about the land where the maoi are buried.

What's interesting from this is the amount of maoi lying towards the crater as I would expect at least some of them to lie away from if they were getting hit on their backs with a **** load of soil. And while I will accept not all of the burying was done at once, I'd say the evidence points to most of it being done at once.

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Love this picture me like. Not as much as I love alien hair man's hair mind, but canny close. From top down, the top of the head is obviously eroded after exposure to the atmosphere. From the ears to the shoulders, it looks eroded but is the same colour as the soil so I think this part was a gradual accumulation of debris around it. From the shoulders down, it's very well preserved suggesting that this part was buried all at once.

It's a right tricky one to me. You have evidence of a large amount of soil being deposited at once but natural processes, whether soil formation or soil movement, have some serious flaws in their plausibility imo. I think it's fair to rule out flood sediment due to it's location. Meteor strike debris is ruled out as well as the evidence doesn't fit it and it certainly wasn't a volcanic eruption. But it came from somewhere. And something moved it. So why not people?

As an aside, some of the interest in there being an older pre-flood civilisation is due to many reasons, some of which are barmy and some of which I think are legitimate, just got to learn how to sift through them. I don't think it's fair to chuck every one who has an interest under the same bus. Having said that, if I got right into my Squozen Earth Idea more than one person would think I was a tad more than barmy. I know I do.

 

Completely agree. I wonder much got lost with the Library of Alexandria? All the South American writings the Roman Catholic Dogma Club burnt. We don't actually have too much from the ancient world and it's a real shame to think of what we might have read from those two sources.

 

I think you need to look at more of the archaeo-environmental evidence from Easter Island. It's fairly well-known that it was heavily forested. It used to be thought that the polynesian settlers cut all the trees down. A bloke called Jared Diamond used it as an example of a society bringing about it's own collapse. That theory has now been widely dismissed and the deforestation is put down to a number of factors combining.

The degree of weathering on the statue is interesting. To understand how quickly it was buried, you'd have to examine the stratigraphy around it and then probably do some microscopy on those deposits.

As I've said before, it's very difficult to argue with published C14 dates.

You aren't Graham Hancock are you? I have seen a convincing archeological theory for the origin of the flood story but relates to events that occurred around 5500BC. A lot of the alien theories and some aspects of Atlantis theories are fairly recent popularisations of theories from the 19th century. These have been wholly discredited because they are based in the premise that non-Europeans wouldnt have been capable of developing complex societies, which is clearly not true. There are a couple of articles that I've seen online about this but I've avoided posting them because they are quite strongly worded.