[HN Gopher] Ancient calendar, recently discovered, may document ...
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Ancient calendar, recently discovered, may document a long-ago
disaster
Author : diodorus
Score : 40 points
Date : 2024-08-12 17:24 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/wlrau
| torlok wrote:
| Can't wait to hear what archaeologists have to day about this
| interpretation. This is a fun topic to speculate about.
|
| Meanwhile, in case anybody's interested, the Younger Dryas
| hypothesis is controversial, not widely accepted by the experts,
| and dr Sweatman appears to be a Chemical Engineer, not an
| Archeologist. Not that it discredits his findings, of course.
| debacle wrote:
| I haven't researched, but I watch the guys on Rogan who talk
| about Younger Dryas. What are the arguments for/against?
| taejavu wrote:
| Sounds like you might benefit from doing some research
| kragen wrote:
| to disambiguate, it is not at all controversial that the
| younger dryas was a thousand-year-long ice age in the northern
| hemisphere at the relevant time; that is universally accepted
| by the experts. what is 'controversial and not widely accepted
| by relevant experts' is the comet impact hypothesis which the
| nyt presents as an accepted fact:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesi...
| neilv wrote:
| > _Although Dr. Sweatman has long researched the symbols at the
| ancient site in Turkey, this recent breakthrough came in the form
| of a tip when someone emailed him that the V-shaped symbols on
| the pillar could be interpreted as markings of the lunar cycle._
|
| They didn't want to be coauthor?
| burkaman wrote:
| I guess not, but they are mentioned in the acknowledgements and
| references of the paper.
|
| > In Section 8.2, text written in italic font expresses ideas
| originally communicated by Dr John Gordon (Gordon 2021).
|
| Also on the author's blog:
| https://martinsweatman.blogspot.com/2024/06/lunisolar-calend...
|
| Not sure who John Gordon is, and that's got to be an incredibly
| common name even among doctors.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| TLDR YDIH, if you watched Ancient Apocalypse this is what Gobekli
| Tepe episode was about. I thought it's debunked.
| torlok wrote:
| It's a widely criticised hypothesis, because it doesn't fit the
| geological record. It's mostly propped up by interpretations
| like these.
| findthewords wrote:
| Data is incomplete. It is difficult to definitively "debunk" or
| "prove" as long as crucial information is missing. Humans use
| imagination to fill in the gaps, which is wonderful.
| onlypassingthru wrote:
| "The comet strike ushered in a 1,200-year ice age and led to the
| extinction of many large animals, Dr. Sweatman said. For humans,
| the comet probably also led to differences in lifestyle and
| agriculture that helped usher in the rise of civilization as we
| know it."
|
| I thought the Americas' megafauna died after the ice age, not
| because of it?
| jumploops wrote:
| Could both statements not be true?
|
| The ice age may have encouraged humans to hunt more mammals
| than previously required.
| kragen wrote:
| unfortunately the terminology here is very unclear, but i think
| you're right; the megafauna dying in america was part of the
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Pleistocene_extinctions
| which happened before the
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas, which is the
| '1200-year ice age' whose name the nyt didn't think was
| important enough to mention
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesi...
| discusses the comet impact hypothesis, which it describes as
| 'controversial and not widely accepted by relevant experts'
|
| also note from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas that
| the younger dryas didn't happen in south america, which is
| where the largest extinction of american megafauna happened;
| instead south america had the milder and earlier
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Cold_Reversal
|
| however, it seems obvious that a widespread glaciation would
| have caused _some_ extinctions, and there was a long tail of
| megafauna extinctions that extended long after the younger
| dryas. glyptodonts like
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doedicurus apparently didn't
| become extinct until only 8000 years ago, and the wrangel
| island mammoths didn't become extinct until only 4000 years ago
| reedf1 wrote:
| Careful analysis must be taken to avoid falling victim to the
| look-elsewhere effect. It is easy to find any numerical
| relationship you want with motivated reasoning.
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