200,000 year old ruins in Africa?

[coremelt]

Well almost certainly not.... this webpage is not entirely convincing
http://www.mondovista.com/adamscalendar.html

However someone made the stone circles around this area. Anyone got a more reputable source with who made these artifacts and how old they are likely to be?

[Mr. Kobayashi]

Originally Posted by coremelt

Well almost certainly not.... this webpage is not entirely convincing
http://www.mondovista.com/adamscalendar.html

However someone made the stone circles around this area. Anyone got a more reputable source with who made these artifacts and how old they are likely to be?

Unlikely, the fella who did the research is a bit of a fruit-loop who apparently believes the word of another nutjob who believes all kinds of bonkers mad bullcrap.

[coremelt]

Originally Posted by Mr. Kobayashi

Unlikely, the fella who did the research is a bit of a fruit-loop who apparently believes the word of another nutjob who believes all kinds of bonkers mad bullcrap.

Sure, but the stone circles are real, they're visible on Google earth, so I'm assuming some actual archeologists have investigated them

[Chief Pedant]

There's no chance that rubble wall the guy is standing next to is anything but modern. I lost interest after chuckling at that...

[Stranger On A Train]

Originally Posted by Chief Pedant

There's no chance that rubble wall the guy is standing next to is anything but modern. I lost interest after chuckling at that...

Not only is it clearly modern in construction (the stones show clear cleaving planes that would have been weathered away if they'd been standing for thousands of years) but they'd also be at least a few meters underground if they had been in place for 200k years, if not completely dislocated by geologic and wind action.

Also, you wouldn't use radiocarbon dating to determine the age of a structure more than 60k years old, and you wouldn't take scrapings off the surface of a rock. So the basic methodology they were going to apply was wrong. Basically, this guy is about as clueless as Dr. Watson in a snowstorm.

Stranger

[Tapioca Dextrin]

from the original article

When explorers first encountered these ruins, they assumed that they were cattle corals (sic) made by nomadic tribes, like the Bantu people, as they moved south and settled the land from around the 13th century.

that was my first guess too. Why complicate things?

[coremelt]

Originally Posted by Tapioca Dextrin

that was my first guess too. Why complicate things?

So I guess even 13th century Bantu ruins are of interest to archeologists, so anyone got any links to studies. I'm trying to debunk this to someone and the current WAG's aren't really helping.

[jakesteele]

[quote=Stranger On A Train;11737040]Not only is it clearly modern in construction (the stones show clear cleaving planes that would have been weathered away if they'd been standing for thousands of years) but they'd also be at least a few meters underground if they had been in place for 200k years, if not completely dislocated by geologic and wind action.

Also, you wouldn't use radiocarbon dating to determine the age of a structure more than 60k years old, and you wouldn't take scrapings off the surface of a rock. So the basic methodology they were going to apply was wrong. Basically, this guy is about as clueless as Dr. Watson in a snowstorm.

"The rocks were covered with a patina that looked very old but there were no items sufficient for carbon-14 dating. It was then that a chance discovery revealed the age of the site,"

It doesn't say they dated it by carbon-14 dating.


"The exact location of the calendar is listed on www.makomati.com. The first calculations of the age of the calendar were made based on the rise of Orion, a constellation known for its three bright stars forming the "belt" of the mythical hunter."

It says that this is the way they dated it. Has anyone done the math on this to see if it is bogus?

[coremelt]

Originally Posted by jakesteele

It says that this is the way they dated it. Has anyone done the math on this to see if it is bogus?

the page you link says 75,000 years old, pretty important difference.

[Cicero]

I think Toto had a song about this- "The Ruins Down in Africa".

[dracoi]

Originally Posted by jakesteele

It says that this is the way they dated it. Has anyone done the math on this to see if it is bogus?

I don't know enough about it to do the math myself, but it seems suspicious to me. As I understand it, the tilt of the stars they're talking about is a result of the Earth's precession, and precession has a cycle of only about 22,000 to 26,000 years. That means Orion should have been in that position 8 or 9 times in 200,000 years.

And this assumes that the three markers are intended to represent Orion's belt in a particular configuration. The site is pretty minimalist and we don't seem to know anything about the people who built it.

[Chief Pedant]

Originally Posted by Stranger On A Train

Not only is it clearly modern in construction (the stones show clear cleaving planes that would have been weathered away if they'd been standing for thousands of years) but they'd also be at least a few meters underground if they had been in place for 200k years, if not completely dislocated by geologic and wind action.

Also, you wouldn't use radiocarbon dating to determine the age of a structure more than 60k years old, and you wouldn't take scrapings off the surface of a rock. So the basic methodology they were going to apply was wrong. Basically, this guy is about as clueless as Dr. Watson in a snowstorm.

Stranger

Yeah; by "modern" I meant brand spanking new, not necessarily modern in terms of construction technique. It's not weathered; it's not filled with dirt and vegetation and it hasn't fallen apart. The notion a wall like that could be thousands of years old is beyond laughable. It's embarrassing. It's not even hundreds--much less tens of thousands--of years old. I'm no kind of expert, but you'd have trouble convincing me that particular wall is dozens of years old. I found the posting of that particular photo comical. There may be other parts more impressive but posing beside that particular piece of the "find" and posting it prominently suggests to me that peanut minds which are either over-impressionable, under-educated, or both, are at work here.

Unless they have some sort of business model to make money off the find. I did not read far enough to figure that out.

[St. Anger]

I heard the guy say they are 200,000 years old on Coast to Coast. That must mean it's true.

[yendis]

I am still trying to find a better cite but the ruins may be part of the Great Zimbabwe empire that existed between 1100AD and 1450AD, cite. The inhabitants were trading with the Middle East and India and even Chinese artifacts have been found. If they are related then they can't be more than about a thousand years old.

The biggest problem with archeology in the region is that until recently nobody was interested. The colonisers didn't care about the history of their colonies and after they left the fighting and civil wars meant that the locals weren't interested either.

[aruvqan]

Originally Posted by Chief Pedant

Yeah; by "modern" I meant brand spanking new, not necessarily modern in terms of construction technique. It's not weathered; it's not filled with dirt and vegetation and it hasn't fallen apart. The notion a wall like that could be thousands of years old is beyond laughable. It's embarrassing. It's not even hundreds--much less tens of thousands--of years old. I'm no kind of expert, but you'd have trouble convincing me that particular wall is dozens of years old. I found the posting of that particular photo comical. There may be other parts more impressive but posing beside that particular piece of the "find" and posting it prominently suggests to me that peanut minds which are either over-impressionable, under-educated, or both, are at work here.

Unless they have some sort of business model to make money off the find. I did not read far enough to figure that out.

Hell, I have a stone fence that was stacked just 19 years ago, and it has leaf and weed detritus mouldering away in the cracks, moss and lichen growing on it, and little poison ivy vines starting to take hold. Those rocks were stacked maybe 2 years ago at best. Unless there is something in there that they are not saying about refurbishing a section of the fences to see how it looked back then, it is totally bogus.

[MrDibble]

Ha-ha. I've been in that very region recently, and I've looked at the google-earth co-ords too. Those are cattle enclosures. The pie-wedge dividing walls in some of them are a dead giveaway. Some of them may well date back tothe Mapangubwe culture (so try one thousand years) which is cool in and of itself, but 200, 000 years? That's older than the oldest human evidence we have (also South Africa, not that I'm bragging) and oodles more sophisticated, if their cockamamie Orion theories were true (why's it always Orion with these loons?)

[Quercus]

Wait! Did you see that he has a book out tha "deals extensively with the ancient stone ruins, their link to AdamÕs Calendar.."

Don't you see? Ancient ruins from near the time of the first modern humans, linked to the Adama calender?

It all fits!!

[pan1]

Orion's belt...really?

Anytime any amateur sees three things lined in row...its a reference to Orion's Belt!

I guess those three cars in the parking lot are some Osiris cult....

The Stone calendar thingy looks a little interesting - I'd like to know the real story about how scientists view them. But the stone walls, not really. Some look like they might be 1k years old, others were built in the last century or two.

[Chimera]

As long as we're going full batshit here, I'm going to declare that they predate the Earth.

[jakesteele]

Originally Posted by coremelt

the page you link says 75,000 years old, pretty important difference.

Here was the point of my first post:

These guys say this:
"But dating the site was a problem. The heavy patina on the rock walls suggested the structures were extremely old, but the science of dating patina is just being developed and is still controversial. Carbon-14 dating of such things as burnt wood introduces the possibility that the specimens could be from recent grass fires which are common in the area." I don't know enough about that stuff to know if that is true or not. Just saying they said. They state that the link I posted shows the location. The site gives it estimated age according to them.

And then they go into the thing about the constellation being in a certain position, etc. which they offer as their proof. I was simply asking if anyone had done the math on their star claim? I didn't say I believed or didn't believe one way or another.

[jakesteele]

Originally Posted by coremelt

the page you link says 75,000 years old, pretty important difference.

To add to my above post, their claim sounds like Forbidden Archeology type stuff.

[pan1]

The 75000 year number was achieved by matching fallen chunks of rock and matching them to the original location. Noting that 3cm of rock was missing and judging that for that particular rock it takes 75000 years for 3cm (or 1.5cm x2) to erode the stones must be at least 75000 years old. There are so many ways this could be off by huge factors.

The science is very fuzzy in both cases. Its Limited-expertise-Philosophy-Psuedo-Science, not fact based science.

[KneadToKnow]

Never mind. Quercus beat me to it.

[Tapioca Dextrin]

Originally Posted by jakesteele

And then they go into the thing about the constellation being in a certain position, etc. which they offer as their proof. I was simply asking if anyone had done the math on their star claim?

There is no math to do. There is no evidence that 200,00 year old humans were into astronomy. There is no evidence that some random rocks correspond to any modern constellation, let alone Orion.

Of course, if you multiply the period of the Earth's procession (25,000 years) by the classic NPOOMA* coefficient, you can get either 75,000, 200,000 years or pretty much any number you want.




*Number Pulled Out Of My Ass

[Petrobey Mavromihalis]

I'm just rereading The Sunbird by Wilbur Smith (there's a distinct lack of bookshops in my neck of the woods), so I'm going to have to say that the ruins are Carthaginian, dating around the 4th century AD! (No way black people could ever have been civilised).

I'd remembered that the book was racist, but had managed to forget that it was also sexist and homophobic. Still a good read though . . .


And MrDibble, next time I'm in South Africa I'd like to buy you a beer.

[mlees]

Don't constellations (the stars themselves as viewed from Earth) change position over time, independent of the procession?

All of our stars are orbiting the center of the Milky Way, but not at the same speeds or angles...

[Anne Neville]

Originally Posted by mlees

Don't constellations (the stars themselves as viewed from Earth) change position over time, independent of the procession?

All of our stars are orbiting the center of the Milky Way, but not at the same speeds or angles...

Yes, they do. The change in constellations from that is called "proper motion".

Wikipedia says the constellation Orion took on a recognizable form about 1.5 million years ago.

[mlees]

Originally Posted by Anne Neville

Yes, they do. The change in constellations from that is called "proper motion".

Wikipedia says the constellation Orion took on a recognizable form about 1.5 million years ago.

Ah. Thanks. I thought the stars drifted faster than that.

[Anne Neville]

Originally Posted by mlees

Ah. Thanks. I thought the stars drifted faster than that.

Some of them do. For instance, the Big Dipper is going to look quite different in 100,000 years.

[Chronos]

Some stars we see in the night sky are bright enough to see because they're intrinsically really bright, and some are bright enough to see just because they're close by. Orion is made up mostly of the first category, while the Big Dipper is made up mostly of stars in the second category. Proper motion of nearby stars is much more obvious than that of distant stars, for the same reason that you see fenceposts whizzing by you on the freeway, but the mountain on the horizon hardly seems to move at all.

That said, though, Orion will look quite different 100,000 years from now, but that's because Betelgeuse will have gone supernova by then. 100,000 years ago, though, it would have looked basically the same (especially in the belt).

[pancakes3]

the thing is, orion's belt moves on a constant basis. it dips above and below the horizon as the earth tilts seasonally. couple this additional degree of freedom with the precession movement and the fact that the belt is evenly spaced and linear and you can pretty much do the same dating with any 3 stones anywhere on the plant.

so, in figuring out at which point in time the stars and stones line up, it gives a starting point. that's probably where the first 25,000 year date came from.

the jump from 25k to 75k is befuddling though. without any further information, the second "archaeoastronomer" added 2 interations of precession. maybe the guy who wrote the article just heard "it could be any factor of 25k. 25k, 50k, even 75k" and chose the oldest number. it's not like this guy is AP or anything.

the last leap from 75k to 160k is due to "erosion" measures which as someone said previously is sketchy at best. it's interesting for sure. the stones are probably pretty old. 175k is ridiculous though.

and fwiw, carbon dating is only applicable to organic compounds dating back 60k years. the fact that it was even mentioned detracts from the page's credibility. also betegeuse isn't in the belt, but that's just nitpicking for nitpicking's sake.

[Chronos]

Yeah, my mention of Betelgeuse at all was nitpicking for nitpicking's sake, too. That's why I said that "especially the belt" would remain unchanged, because even if Betelgeuse were a significantly different brightness, the belt would be the same.

[Olentzero]

Originally Posted by pancakes3

and fwiw, carbon dating is only applicable to organic compounds dating back 60k years. the fact that it was even mentioned detracts from the page's credibility.

You obviously didn't get to the last page where he was pulling quotes from Sumerian mythology as a basis for claiming the human race was created for slavery in the gold mines using cloning and/or in vitro fertilization, until the gods' nearby home planet came close enough to Earth to cause floods with its gravity, but one god liked this one human and told him to build a boat so the human race wouldn't get wiped out.

Forget the efficacy of carbon-14 dating or patina tests, this is all the proof anyone needs that the hypothesis is batshit insane - or would be if the use of the term weren't so insulting to bat shit.

[Quercus]

Originally Posted by Olentzero

You obviously didn't get to the last page where he was pulling quotes from Sumerian mythology as a basis for claiming the human race was created for slavery in the gold mines using cloning and/or in vitro fertilization, until the gods' nearby home planet came close enough to Earth to cause floods with its gravity, but one god liked this one human and told him to build a boat so the human race wouldn't get wiped out.

See! I told you!
Though the Earth's human race is really only half descended from beings-constructed-as-slaves and the other half the 'gods' who built the slaves. And the floods weren't on Earth and were more like 'nuclear explosions' than floods, and the boat is of course a spaceship, but otherwise the Sumerians were right on.
It all fits, I tell you. It all fits!

[MrDibble]

I have no doubt the stones are pretty old - those are drystone walls made of natural rocks, I wouldn't be surprised if they were dateable to several billion years old given the geology of the area, but that means nothing. You can only date something like these walls from associated artifacts, not loon theories of astro-alignment.

And Petrobey, anytime. Cape Town has a rather nice Paulaner microbrewery...

[grimpixie]

Originally Posted by MrDibble

And Petrobey, anytime. Cape Town has a rather nice Paulaner microbrewery...

And if you drink three in a row, you get transported to the stars....

Grim

[ctnguy]

Previous thread about this.

edit: completing a trifecta of Capetonian posts.

[coremelt]

so I'm guessing that because of the "fruit loop" factor no Archeologist has specifically investigated Adam's calendar. Which seems a shame as it could easily be much older than the stone kraals.

[Tapioca Dextrin]

Science doesn't work that way. If someone claims that the circles were made by faeries to house unicorns, no one's going investigate the claim unless you find some fossil wings and horns. If someone claims the existence Sumerian Space Alien Gravity Ships, they'd better have some actual, you know, evidence. Even Roswell level "evidence" would be better than nothing.