Lost human cilvilizations?

ChaoticOrange

Registered User
Jun 29, 2008
51,652
31,608
Edmonton
Interesting thread, guys.

One thing: a guy mentioned a hammer encased in stone that the handle was turning to coal: these are commonly known as OOPARTS, or "out of place artifacts"

There are quite a few examples of these. Some have been debunked, some were simply misunderstood (the Baigong pipes) but some of them defy explanation - such as the aforementioned hammer. I've also seen pictures and read articles about other commonplace items such as screws, hinges, axes, doorknobs, etc being found inside undisturbed coal and stones.

Probably the most "out there" thing I believe is that our civilization is not the first one on this planet to achieve "near" our current level of technology, and that it wasn't that long ago, either. With the widespread prevalence of flood myths in world religions and the geological evidence of a massive meteor impact ~12,000 years ago, I believe that someone hit the reset button on some fairly advanced civilizations around that time and humanity didn't appreciably recover for ~6,000 years. At least no records of humanity.
 

Stylizer1

Teflon Don
Jun 12, 2009
20,005
4,012
Ottabot City
Interesting thread, guys.

One thing: a guy mentioned a hammer encased in stone that the handle was turning to coal: these are commonly known as OOPARTS, or "out of place artifacts"

There are quite a few examples of these. Some have been debunked, some were simply misunderstood (the Baigong pipes) but some of them defy explanation - such as the aforementioned hammer. I've also seen pictures and read articles about other commonplace items such as screws, hinges, axes, doorknobs, etc being found inside undisturbed coal and stones.

Probably the most "out there" thing I believe is that our civilization is not the first one on this planet to achieve "near" our current level of technology, and that it wasn't that long ago, either. With the widespread prevalence of flood myths in world religions and the geological evidence of a massive meteor impact ~12,000 years ago, I believe that someone hit the reset button on some fairly advanced civilizations around that time and humanity didn't appreciably recover for ~6,000 years. At least no records of humanity.
The pyramids in Egypt are just too big compared to anything. They seem liked they were built to withstand any natural disaster ie floods.
 

tarheelhockey

Offside Review Specialist
Feb 12, 2010
86,854
144,986
Bojangles Parking Lot
I think a lot of the material out there on the subject of lost civilizations is just nonsense waiting to be debunked.

That being said, it really is a mind-blowing thing to sit back and consider how many gaps exist in the historical record. So much of human culture was built of wood, and simply wiped away with time. Or built on sand or marsh, and sunk out of sight forever. The little bits and pieces we can still see are truly like the tip of an iceberg, the last bit of visible remnant after 99% has disappeared.

This really hit home for me last year when I took a trip to Guatemala. There's a Maya city there called Tikal. It's just absolutely stunning, an urban engineering achievement 100% on par with what you'd expect to see in a Roman city. Everything from paved streets to manmade water supply to towering temples to sporting arenas. The crazy thing is, it's literally buried under centuries of jungle overgrowth. What looks like hills are actually full-sized temples buried in organic debris. The site looks like this to the naked eye:

view-of-the-plaza-of-the-lost-world-and-temple-iv-from-top-of-pyramid-AB02EX.jpg


But like this to LIDAR:

tikal.png


Meaning it looked like this in its heyday:

hneahN89uC_dDeLhSwnRKDKnw32hf7KhRH0zFUDxTeT0lY4loxWYXXgQaXUgsMuXt4qDF14LcXt560RweUZXmt5aJhBbUkwbXfurXsEcb6fUHlkArYBsrUm9FairVvZULmoqBM4AnO9TdSzFsZ1I_vz21gM_zvlKpogWvyBRAkToeIPpnQ7Kk-Ew8KvOzNgLhXoSVTxGCOtKflAKrDSkVHka-nesZREoYoE



Currently, archaeological teams are in the process of digging the site out, one scoop of dirt at a time, revealing these unbelievable temples and public spaces that were once inhabited by a sophisticated urban society.

It's just mind-blowing to imagine how many parts of this planet -- jungles, deserts, ice plains, seabeds -- were once covered in human works. Tikal is one thing, because it had monumental architecture tall enough to stay above the canopy. Imagine how many full-scale cities didn't have that, or were made of materials that wouldn't resist the passage of time, and were simply lost... buried or eroded away forever.
 

Stylizer1

Teflon Don
Jun 12, 2009
20,005
4,012
Ottabot City
I think a lot of the material out there on the subject of lost civilizations is just nonsense waiting to be debunked.

That being said, it really is a mind-blowing thing to sit back and consider how many gaps exist in the historical record. So much of human culture was built of wood, and simply wiped away with time. Or built on sand or marsh, and sunk out of sight forever. The little bits and pieces we can still see are truly like the tip of an iceberg, the last bit of visible remnant after 99% has disappeared.

This really hit home for me last year when I took a trip to Guatemala. There's a Maya city there called Tikal. It's just absolutely stunning, an urban engineering achievement 100% on par with what you'd expect to see in a Roman city. Everything from paved streets to manmade water supply to towering temples to sporting arenas. The crazy thing is, it's literally buried under centuries of jungle overgrowth. What looks like hills are actually full-sized temples buried in organic debris. The site looks like this to the naked eye:

view-of-the-plaza-of-the-lost-world-and-temple-iv-from-top-of-pyramid-AB02EX.jpg


But like this to LIDAR:

tikal.png


Meaning it looked like this in its heyday:

hneahN89uC_dDeLhSwnRKDKnw32hf7KhRH0zFUDxTeT0lY4loxWYXXgQaXUgsMuXt4qDF14LcXt560RweUZXmt5aJhBbUkwbXfurXsEcb6fUHlkArYBsrUm9FairVvZULmoqBM4AnO9TdSzFsZ1I_vz21gM_zvlKpogWvyBRAkToeIPpnQ7Kk-Ew8KvOzNgLhXoSVTxGCOtKflAKrDSkVHka-nesZREoYoE



Currently, archaeological teams are in the process of digging the site out, one scoop of dirt at a time, revealing these unbelievable temples and public spaces that were once inhabited by a sophisticated urban society.

It's just mind-blowing to imagine how many parts of this planet -- jungles, deserts, ice plains, seabeds -- were once covered in human works. Tikal is one thing, because it had monumental architecture tall enough to stay above the canopy. Imagine how many full-scale cities didn't have that, or were made of materials that wouldn't resist the passage of time, and were simply lost... buried or eroded away forever.
Stone is the only thing that stands the test of time. You would think that these cultures figured out they had to build these megaliths a certain way as to preserve them.
 
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Desdichado93

Registered User
Jan 7, 2012
1,292
246
Sweden
Great little experiment to ponder.

Flood Map: Elevation Map, Sea Level Rise Map

By just raising sea levels 50 meters you take out most of the major cities on the east coast of north america.

If you lower them by -400 you can see just how much land appears.

If sea levels rose 80 meters my home would be under water.

Even at -8 m, Sweden and Denmark would be connected by firm land. And at -15 Sweden and Finland would connected between Umeå and Vasa.
The latter will happened eventually if current land raise continue in the area but it would take 1500 year or so.
 
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Stylizer1

Teflon Don
Jun 12, 2009
20,005
4,012
Ottabot City
Even at -8 m, Sweden and Denmark would be connected by firm land. And at -15 Sweden and Finland would connected between Umeå and Vasa.
The latter will happened eventually if current land raise continue in the area but it would take 1500 year or so.
If during the last ice age sea levels were 400 feet lower all that land would have been inhabited by so many species. The standard theory is that sea levels rose slowly thus allowing people/species to disperse gradually. If you go by the Randal Carlson/Graham Hancock theory it was a rapid and massive flood caused by a meteor/asteroid strike to the ice caps covering North America and Europe that would have been too fast to escape from like the story of Noah's ark. Also if it were and asteroid full of ice that could have contributed to seas level rises also. The only way water gets to earth is from million years of asteroid strikes. The last one could have been 1200 years ago.

Such a fun thought experiment.
 

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