It's what a lot of engineers have been saying for decades: Looking at the surfaces of the artefacts, it's obvious more advanced tooling, than what was claimed by archaeologists, must have been used. Oh irony, the bits were already lying about in the museum's archive for a century.
This is true in many, many, many, many places. It takes a significantly higher bar of evidence to put forward specific tooling than an engineer's intuition to make the mark in archaeology.
It sounds very un-archaeologist to not investigate the gap between artifact and tooling (like that’s their job?).
For me the ‘archaeology not accepting things’ has been fueled by Graham Hancock etc. Archaeology is a lot like science, it sits on a body of research, if there’s evidence of advanced tooling and it’s properly investigated and written up, verified, no archaeologist would deny it.
It's this kind of gate keeping in archaeology that has kept Graham Hancock out of the industry for years, and we are now just finding out his theories are true.
My theory is that the industry is so small, they are afraid it will put them out of a career.
I am really curious about the scoop marks across the globe. The hole drilling story is only interesting because of the precision and feed-per-revolution which is probably why archaeologists does not understand how advanced those people creating this holes must have been.
Thankyou. I was going to point this out. Chris (ClickSpring) is the first to say that his methods are not proven, they're just highly believable given the technology of the time. I did some archaeology at uni and I know we're not meant to say this, but sometimes things are just so obvious even when there is no physical evidence of it.
Archaeological proofs have the unfortunate property of having each deductive step being fairly obvious and limited, but proving those steps can be literally impossible.
Given need, access to anything that might serve as string, pieces of wood, and too much time to think about the problem, most singular humans will come up with that within the year, if not within days.
That thing has probably been independently invented a hundred thousand times over. Trying to figure out who did it first is silly.
Also that is not a "sophisticated" tool at all. It's literally one step above hitting rocks together. Sharp rocks happens to be the only tool you need to make a basic bow drill.
Indian carpenters always had a drill with large spindle around which a long rope is wound. A person pulls the rope back and forth spinning the drill. Another person holds the drill in position using a flat wood piece at the top with small hole to hold the drill axle.
Same technique is also used for spinning a wooden churner to get butterfat out of curd. A standing woman would pull the rope back and forth for a few minutes on the long churner stick that is churning the curd in a clay pot placed on the floor.
I think archaeology requires a multidisciplinary approach that has only recently begun to emerge. For too long, especially in past centuries, archaeologists focused on history and languages while neglecting engineering, chemistry and the practical techniques that enabled survival and innovation.
That's why the general public views our ancestors as 'primitive,' when in reality they possessed techniques many of which we've lost or still don't fully understand.
I wonder if the bow drill principle for boring holes evolved from fire-starting techniques, where the same reciprocal motion was already understood and mastered in that years.
Just speculation, but it suggests how practical problem-solving builds on existing techniques rather than appearing fully formed.
Conspiracy theorists have long pointed out the obviously drilled holes in stonework that was >5000 years old. Of course they want to attribute it to lost advanced technology, but the more believable answer is that ancient Egyptians had really refined mundane tools like a bow drill.
I still want to know how the scoop marks were made in the ancient quarries. What tool could do that?
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 49.9 ms ] threadFor me the ‘archaeology not accepting things’ has been fueled by Graham Hancock etc. Archaeology is a lot like science, it sits on a body of research, if there’s evidence of advanced tooling and it’s properly investigated and written up, verified, no archaeologist would deny it.
My theory is that the industry is so small, they are afraid it will put them out of a career.
Archaeological proofs have the unfortunate property of having each deductive step being fairly obvious and limited, but proving those steps can be literally impossible.
That thing has probably been independently invented a hundred thousand times over. Trying to figure out who did it first is silly.
Also that is not a "sophisticated" tool at all. It's literally one step above hitting rocks together. Sharp rocks happens to be the only tool you need to make a basic bow drill.
Because electricity was unreliable and machinery was expensive.
Same technique is also used for spinning a wooden churner to get butterfat out of curd. A standing woman would pull the rope back and forth for a few minutes on the long churner stick that is churning the curd in a clay pot placed on the floor.
Just speculation, but it suggests how practical problem-solving builds on existing techniques rather than appearing fully formed.
I still want to know how the scoop marks were made in the ancient quarries. What tool could do that?