I assume you are not proposing this “series of islands” that disappeared in an explosion (OK – make that a series of explosions) as a plausible theory. Sorry, but due to the nature of tectonic plates, you do not get those kind of massive volcanic explosions in Atlantic where the plates are separating. You get volcanic explosions where plates come together and collide – along the Pacific.
My guess on the explanation for the whole thing:
False positives due to the presence related compounds, and weaknesses in the drug testing. I have personal knowledge of such – a woman in our department quit her previous job to take a position here. She was told that she was accepted, all she had to do was pass the drug screen. No problem, since she not only did not take drugs, she did not even drink or smoke. Lo and behold, she failed, told that she tested positive for opiates – essentially heroin – but nothing else. She said there must be some kind of mistake, but was refused a retest, other than to test the remainder of the sample they already had on file. Now ask yourself: what percentage of junkies don’t smoke dope or imbibe in some form of cocaine?
She was now without a job. Fortunately, she had a friend who was a manager in a “sensitive” part of the company, and this friend knew more about drug testing than the people administering the tests. Did she eat any poppy seed muffins or bread? Yes! And this little bit of knowledge is what saved her.
I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to see such behaviour in this forum! Remember, you can criticise the idea, but not the person. Saying “Your analysis is lacking in rigour” is OK. Saying “you are mentally deficient” is not.
If any poster continues with personal attacks in this thread, I will have to ask her or him to step outside.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by parkerea *
**dawnimal:
I assume you are not proposing this “series of islands” that disappeared in an explosion (OK – make that a series of explosions) as a plausible theory. Sorry, but due to the nature of tectonic plates, you do not get those kind of massive volcanic explosions in Atlantic where the plates are separating. You get volcanic explosions where plates come together and collide – along the Pacific."
Parkera, I believe I did say the plates may have separated… and that “poppy seed eating” thing was on a Seinfield episode, where Elaine was canned from her job for the same thing…
Espresso, funny how my theories are “crackpot”, gee… maybe Hazel’s idea is more what you agree with? Do you talk to your mother with that attitude?
You may want to try ask.com to find different sites that discuss different testing methods… IE. What are the sites that discuss testing methods for forensic studies?
There are several different tests that can be done to determine the particular characteristics of minute traces of substances…
Try to remember though, everything on this earth has the same characteristics. It is only the difference in the amounts of each substance that everything is made up that determines what it is. You are not really as special that you are proposing yourself to be.
No, your bad punctuation, inexact and generally fluffy language, massive ignorance of facts, manifest belief in nonsense straight out of the National Enquirer, and proven inability to read (as witness, for example, your hauling of DNA into the question) simply annoy us.
If you walk into a room full of grown-ups and let out a loud fart, the looks you get aren’t because anyone’s feeling “threatened”.
It is true that some experts theorize that certain ancient plants(possibly extinct, though one wonders why they would allow that to happen)would cross-react with cocaine or nicotine in modern tests. This is certainly more likely than that this would be the only evidence we’d have of ancient visits to the New World.
I’ve unfortunately deleted my links to the cocaine/mummies sites, but will ask Cecil about the site that described the tests on the hairs. It wasn’t in the transcript of the TV show? I’ll check further.
Jill
I believe you said that:
“Maybe the bottom of the ocean floor opened up and sucked them in at the height of the culture’s exsistance [sic]… Maybe it happened immediately or over a few thousand years…”
When I talked of plates separating I did not mean they suddenly opened up a chasm engulfing everything nearby. Quite the opposite – the Atlantic plates move apart very, very, very slowly, with the tiny fissure between them constantly being replaced with new ocean floor as the plates are stretched apart. No wild or sudden movement, explosions. Again, explosions like that happen on the Pacific side, not the Atlantic. Even meteors don’t move continents, they just punch really big holes in them.
Regarding the poppy seed thing, I have never been an avid Seinfeld watcher, and never saw the episode you refer to. Although it may sound like a “really, I heard about this guy who knew someone…” story, I guarantee you this is not a third hand urban legend. I worked with this woman for almost four years in the typesetting department of a major electric utility company. Because the company has a nuke plant, they have been giving all employees pre-employment drug screens since long before it became fashionable. I regret to say that I turned my back on my liberal beliefs by gladly peeing in a cup, simply because they offered me a really nice job. (If you don’t believe the poppy seed thing, try eating a few the day before take a drug test.) I mentioned it not because I think the test used by the originators of the article are the same used by my company, but because too often a blind belief in a seemingly unambiguous test leads to bogus results.
Except the Egyptians did document a number of drugs and herbs they used. We know they made and drank beer. We know Egyptian and Phoenician rowers chewed hemp as a muscle relaxant and pain killer, we know the Egyptians had drugs and medicines that they used to treat fevers and malaria. We know all this because the Egyptians documented them and we’ve found traces of these drugs in more than just a few places. I guarantee that the African continent is nowhere near the proximity it was 7000 yrs ago… or however long ago… the timing is irrelevant. It also was less likely to be as huge a dessert area as it is now. Land masses can change in an instant-- please note the earthquakes that just happened in India… in South America a week or two ago…
How do you guarantee that? We know the climate changed…the Sahara increased considerably, due to the process of desertification, but the location of Africa probably didn’t change too much in 7000 years. We know that the Egyptians had contact with the other people of the Mediterranean. Besides, the earliest mummies we know of date from about 2500 BCE, so that narrows down the date to within 4500 years, and it’s really unlikely that Africa moved from that date.
I give y’all the following scenario…
**A couple of islands, let’s say 5, spanned across the Atlantic once upon a time… a few hundred miles apart.
These islands hosted peoples that were similar to Egyptians, who were living on the two closest islands to Africa, and, similar to the people of Southern America, who were living on the two closest to that continent. The middle island served as a hub for trade and cultural exchange… building ideas… languages … foods… animals… textiles… genes… just about everything…**
Except, first of all, the people of South America aren’t ethnically or linguistically similar to the North Africans…they’re similar to the North Americans, who are similar to the eastern Asians. Also, if such trade went on, we’d expect to find evidence of African animals in America, and American animals in Africa, but there’s no evidence that the South Americans knew of the horse, the mule, the cheetah, the cat, etc, all of which were domesticated by the Egyptians, until contact later on, and no evidence the ancient Egyptians knew of the llama or alpaca. Also, the Egyptians didn’t control the Western Mediteranean, the Lybians did, and Lybia and Egypt were enemies, so it’s not liklely the Egyptians could have gotten to these hypothetical islands.
**Do we know that any of this didn’t happen? No…?
Regardless, I believe it’s more than likely that there is a perfectly reasonable and painfully obvious scenario that explains the trace of drug components found in the DNA of ancient peoples, as well as, many of the idiosyncrasies we think they have.**
The reasonable scenario is that the mummies were contaminated by 19th century collectors, where cocaine and nicotine use were common. I don’t understand what you mean about the idiosyncrasies of ancient peoples.
Can’t we just take the information as it is… learn from it’s face value… teach others about it or just share with them? Learn from the ancient peoples evils that may be the cause of societal and cultural downfalls?
Except, the information, without a context to put it in is meaningless. I don’t understand you here either. I strongly support the learning of history.
This one shows they got their results published in The Lancet, which lends a certain credibility to the results. In addition, a large number of mummies were tested, and they showed regional differences not related to where the mummies wound up, but related to where they were found.
This is looking more and more credible all the time. I’d love to get a copy of the article from The Lancet.
I specifically remember reading one article where other scientists questioned the presence of these substances on the surface of the hair, suggesting later contamination… and then a description of washing the hair in an alcohol solution and testing the shaft.
I forgot to mention that the second URL you offered stated that the testing involved hair, tissue, and bone and teeth samples as well. I’d find it a little far-fetched for someone to be suggesting that the insides of teeth and bones were somehow contaimated by handling at any point.
I think that the issue which must be addressed is not contaimination per se (although that may still be a problem) but old world plants expressing similar or the same alkaloids, as I noted Cecil mentions. Until this avenue is explored, one can not jump to theorizing rather extraordinary (and contrary to all other evidence re lack of Americas-Euro/African contacts, e.g. disease resistances etc.) voyages.
The simplest explanation is that the mummies are of dubious provenance. There was a thriving market in counterfeit mummies during the last 2 centuries, fueled by a European fascination with finds by Carter, et al. If the mummies are counterfeits made from the cadavers of relatively modern individuals, the drug traces found aren’t so mysterious. Yes, it’s true that they tested the inside of hair samples after washing the outside in alcohol, etc. to remove contaminants, but that desn’t disprove that the mummies were “modern”.
I’m not sure what to make of this. Some people do sensationalize the Egyptians. They claim there’s no way humans acting alone could have built the pyramids, for instance, so they had to have extraterrestrial help. I find that silly and unfounded. However, the Eqyptians were pretty creative and advanced for their time. As for “archeological scientists” perpetuating differences and sensationalizing things, that hardly seems the case. Archeologists and anthropologists are into studying the cultures to learn what they were like. Later you claim we should just learn from the previous cultures. How exactly are we going to do that without studying them?
dawnimal
The problem is not that they used drugs. The problem is which drugs are showing up. Finding traces of tobacco and cocaine in Egyptian mummies authentic to the time is the equivalent of finding traces of Romulan ale, or some drug from Alpha Centauri. If there’s no way for it to be there, then finding it there is a major discovery. However, you can’t take a claim like that at face value. If the discovery goes against a lot of strong evidence, the first thing is to validate that discovery by looking at alternative explanations - like African plants with similar characteristics that would trigger positive responses, or later contamination in handling, or even fake mummies from later years. You have to rule those out before you can justify looking for cross Atlantic trade routes that didn’t include exchange of livestock, immunity to disease, and all the other points anthropologists and archeologists use to correlate interculture exchange.
Um, except for the part of being found in the DNA, I think this is a point we are all in agreement. There is a perfectly reasonable and rational explanation for the results. We are trying to establish what that explanation is.
Face value is often distorted. Didn’t you just complain about not seeing the forest for the trees? First we have to find the information, then we have to understand what the information means, before we can learn from it. If we don’t, then we aren’t learning from the past, we are just making things up.
celestina said:
First, I don’t recall the Egyptians having the concept of zero. That is a later Arabic discovery/invention (let the math people argue the word choice there). Second, transatlantic trade requires more than just the mathmatics of navigation. It also requires a certain skill in ship building. Access to resources like wood, access to the sea, skill in building boats that won’t sink under the rough Atlantic seas, or storms, that can last away from the coast. Why do we not think the Egyptians could do this? For starters, there are no records of it. And the Egyptians are notorious record keepers. They wrote down everything. You think our beauracracy is thick and paperwork high, we learned it from the Egyptians. The records we have of their shipbuilding skills are inadequate to the task. There are no records to support the notion, and don’t you think at least one of those pharoahs would have made a big deal about it, one of his accomplishements on the way to godhood?
Naw, I’m sorry, Jill, I have a big problem with this. (You surprise me–I thought you were a scientist. You’re supposed to be a little more skeptical, yes? )
“One swallow does not a summer make.”
“One test does not an incontrovertible proof make.”
The website itself is hardly unbiased. It’s a little hard to tell, but it looks to me as though it’s a Cecil Adams/Onion/Snopes wannabe, very tongue-in-cheek, poking fun at the paranormal. The article you cited was from a regular column called “Fortean Slips–A compendium of hilarious dispatches from D. Trull’s outpost on the paranormal fringe.” He’s trying to be funny, not factual.
This has not been proven. It’s amusing, but not necessarily true.
I don’t think it’s kosher to cite a satirical website as backup. And people yell at Cecil when he’s goofing around like that.
Or are they serious? It’s hard to tell. Either way, it’s not a good cite, sorry.
once again, the only reference is to S.B.'s own “innovative” test, and it’s not described, and evidently no other kind of test was done.
The fact that they also supposedly found nicotine in some south German mummies makes me go, “Huh? South German? Who said anything about German mummies?”
This is a website with an ax to grind. http://www.ndsn.org/ They only post the things that confirm their agenda. Their agenda is:
“Drugs are bad, but they’re not a modern problem.” Sorry, but I’m not buying “cocaine mummies” just 'cause an anti-drug group has it posted on their website.
Espresso’s links:
The first one is the same as Jill’s. And, um, no, I’m sorry, but it doesn’t really prove anything. The statement:
–is much too vague for the Straight Dope, sorry. Again, he’s writing to be entertaining and glib, not factual.
The second one is the same as Jill’s, too.
Um, I don’t see any mention in the article of any distinguishing between “where the mummies wound up”, by which I presume you mean which museums, and “where they were found”, by which I presume you mean their original location. They’re all just lumped in together, “Sudanese”, “Peruvian”, etc.
I’d like to see the Lancet article, too. And I’d like to point out that just because something’s published doesn’t make it a confirmed scientific fact. What turns a factoid into a fact is (a) reproducible results and (b) peer review.
In order for the presence of cocaine and nicotine in these various mummies to be considered a FACT, there would have to be several other studies done, by reputable scientists, using not only S.B.'s “innovative” test, but also tried and true testing methods. Then these results would be published, and other scientists would go home and start experimenting and see whether they could come up with the same results. Also, various experts in the fields of these kinds of testing would weigh in, publishing their professional evaluations and opinions of the testing methods used. Were the proper procedures followed? etc. It wouldn’t be the first time that the results of research were discredited in the scientific community because some expert pointed out, “Hey, your sampling base was wildly skewed”, or “It’s normal, when performing this test, to cream the butter and the sugar together first, BEFORE adding the eggs. Dr. Crocker added the eggs to the butter before she added the sugar, and that’s a non-standard procedure.”
The fact that S.B. obtained her results using a non-standard method just makes me nervous, because then she can say, to anyone who doesn’t get the same results as she did, “Oh, well, you must not have done the test right.”
Um, no, actually, I was just about to say, “This is looking more and more INcredible all the time,” now that I’m actually devoting time to sitting down and thinking about it, instead of merely allowing myself to be guided by the facts that (a) only one person has ever found these results, (b) that she did so while using her own personal method of testing, (c) that so far only one set of researchers has tried to duplicate her results, (d) that they did so while using her own personal method of testing, (e) that while supposedly confirming S.B.'s results, they also got some rather odd results (the German mummies with nicotine in them), (f) that there’s only the one report on the Web covering all this (the BBC video), and (g) that it’s linked to every “Atlantis” and “ancient mariners” website there is (which ought to be a dead giveaway). People with agendas post things that confirm those agendas.
And look, now we’ve got our very own Atlantean right here in this thread!
Okay, you’re assuming that their categorical listing of “hair, skin, muscle, brain, teeth, and bones” means that they tested all of these parts of all of the remains, whether mummified or skeletal. If they had muscle, then they tested muscle. If they had hair, then they tested hair. But it actually doesn’t say that–you’re just assuming that.
And I’d still like to hear an explanation for nicotine in German and Sudanese remains. I’m beginning to think Eohippus has a point, even though museum directors worldwide will scream in horror at the thought. “What, you question the item’s provenance!? How dare you!”
Er, no I’m not. But unless there was a statistically significant correlation between a TYPE of sample and the results found, then I doubt you could show that the sample type had anything to do with it.
My argument about bone samples still stands. I would, again, very much like to see a specific breakdown of samples, origin, current location, and results.
Er, please be careful assuming what I’m assuming here.
Assuming you are correct, how come the correlation was in country of origin, and not in where they ended up? And how could bone samples get “contaminated”?
I’m not sure any other explanation fits the available evidence.
Well, I’m not theorizing about any voyages. I’m just trying to fit the available evidence with a theory about how they got that way in terms of any specific mummy; i.e., did they do these drugs, or not? rather than Where did they get them?
You and Cecil both make a good point about the nature of the drug residue. Complex organic compounds are fairly fragile, and it would be rather difficult to separate out a large enough sample for gas chromatography or the mass spectroscope. I’m not sure how to address that problem. However, I’m pretty certain that cocaine in particular does not correspond to much else in nature, and certainly little or nothing in Egypt.
I don’t think anyone used anything as “backup”. I’m not “trying to prove a point”, myself. She listed some relevant sites that mentioned the issue, and even SAID she had not looked at them herself. I was commenting on the relevance of what I found there, not its feasbility for scientific proof. That’s why I wasid I wanted to read The Lancet’s article.
One of those sites goes into more detail about the method and how it eliminates outside contamination to whatever degree. It would have to be detailed in The Lancet’s article.
Since she was apparently studying mummies, I’m not sure how your confusion indicates anything about the veractity of her results, and it’s quiet logical to think she would be investigating them.
What’s your point? Are you implying they made up The Lancet article?
They’re both the same as Jill’s. She posted them, I read and commented on them.
I admit freely that I don’t have the knowledge or resources to “prove” anything here. It sounds like you’re so interested in being right that you are ignoring the evidence and its source. You seem to have quite already discounted it in toto. Your skepticism isn’t a basis of “proof”, either, you know.
laughs You know a lot of museums with mummies in the Sudan? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
The Lancet is the journal of the American Medical Association. It is one of the most heavily peer-reviewed documents in the world.
The results have been reproduced by the only person to have retested the samples.
I’m not sure how else to disuade you from your pre-formed belief that there’s nothing to the results. I’m a skeptic, myself, but I don’t let it get in the way of learning new things.
Pray tell, do enlighten us on the “tried and true” testing methods for finding those drugs in tissue and bone samples.
True enough. But unless you’re far more expert than you seem, you’re not really in much of a place to be discounting procedures or results. What’s your background in drug analysis?
She is apparently the first person to attempt to isolate druglike compounds from mummies. How could there be “standard” methods to do what she has been the first to do?
This isn’t true.
You haven’t found fault with them, and there appear to curerntly be no alternatives.
blink So research is meaningless unless a lot of people think it’s important just then? That’s not science. That’s prejudice.
All of the results are odd. Why else would they be discussed here?
IF you have a better testing methodolgy, or find fault with hers, let’s hear your suggested alternative.
If scientists have chosen to ignore it, and it has no useful bearing on modern life, why would the media bother with it?
Let me get this straight; something that is latched onto by fringe people must be bunk? Please elaborate on your use of scientific method to prove that.
Yeah, but hopefully she’s left us alone now.
(edited to prevent the whole post from appearing in bold)
[Edited by Arnold Winkelried on 01-30-2001 at 01:57 PM]
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