Ask An Atlanteologist

[Borachio]

Now this sounds like someone claiming religion is just another science.

No, I wouldn't say that. I think there are fundamental differences between religion and science.

But not changing isn't one of them.

 

[Senethro]

Maybe they made virtually all their stuff of fully organic materials, if they actually existed.

You don't get many good knives or combs made out of soft, degradable materials and advanced civilizations don't appear overnight. We don't need to look for the Mount Rushmores and Great Walls of the Atlanteans, just their household objects trash would be enough.

I'm guessing EltonJ will assert we've already found them and that dating techniques based on radioactive decay don't apply to these artifacts.

 

[Borachio]

Let's not forget that the earliest known battery dates from 250 BC.

So, who knows what technological developments there may have been in the distant past that have been forgotten?

Not that I think much of the Atlantis theory, apart from maybe as a metaphor.

 

[Tahuti]

You don't get many good knives or combs made out of soft, degradable materials and advanced civilizations don't appear overnight.

If such a civilisation actually existed - unlikely as it may be - a completely different technological development path would not be unthinkable at all. Especially if they are colonists from another planet.

 

[Borachio]

Maybe the Atlanteans made all their knives and combs out of a material that was date-stamped, so that it was hard and durable until the specified date, when it very quickly turned soft and degraded.

I like this theory.

Any sufficiently advanced civilization could surely implement it in practice.

And just goes to show how environmentally aware the Atlanteans were: leaving nary a trace behind.

 

[Senethro]

Let's not forget that the earliest known battery dates from 250 BC.

So, who knows what technological developments there may have been in the distant past that have been forgotten?

Not that I think much of the Atlantis theory, apart from maybe as a metaphor.

More importantly we know of these technologies because they leave components behind. Yes the Romans had double glazing two millennia before its modern invention but I'd like to see at least a fossilized airline meal and life vest before I go believing in flying saucers bringing extraterrestrial tourists on package holidays.

 

[Willem]

We don't need to look for the Mount Rushmores and Great Walls of the Atlanteans, just their household objects trash would be enough.

A more indicative thing to find would be one of their abandoned mines. Surely an advanced civilization would need to extract metals from the earth, and those are things that don't degrade over time like household trash or other artifacts. If Atlantis had actually existed, I'm sure we would have found at least one of them by now.

Frankly, I'm thinking this is just some sort of elaborate troll thread. I really can't see anyone sincerely believing in any of this.

 

[Senethro]

If such a civilisation actually existed - unlikely as it may be - a completely different technological development path would not be unthinkable at all. Especially if they are colonists from another planet.

Are you sure? Isn't the last common human technology the neolithic variants of the handaxe? And yet the Mediterranean group/Chinese/indigenous Americans independently invented agriculture, writing, smelting, and astronomy.

Technologies largely seem to be about turning unused energy/materials into work/function or increasing the efficiency of energy transfer. I know this is a very silly thread but if there is an untapped energy source out there that allowed the Atlanteans to disregard fossil fuels and nuclear reactions as not worth the effort, then I hope humanity discovers it the day after we stop wanting to blow each other up.

Frankly, I'm thinking this is just some sort of elaborate troll thread. I really can't see anyone sincerely believing in any of this.

Is it really any stranger than believing the universe to be 6000 years old?

 

[Tahuti]

Are you sure? Isn't the last common human technology the neolithic variants of the handaxe? And yet the Mediterranean group/Chinese/indigenous Americans independently invented agriculture, writing, smelting, and astronomy.

The Aztecs did not have the wheel. Greek fire never reappeared. The order in which all that was invented was different for the differing civilisations as well. The astronauts are probably unlike humans, so the starting point for scientific discovery may have been completely different as well.

 

[Willem]

Is it really any stranger than believing the universe to be 6000 years old?

At least the creationist view has some sort of basis in literature. There is absolutely no proof at all of the existence of Atlantis, at least not in terms of what some people are claiming. An advanced civilization in the time of Plato certainly doesn't translate to spaceships and technology that rivals, or even exceeds, our own. It seems pretty certain to me the reference Plato made pointed to the Minoans, you weren't really that much more developed than their neighbours.

The astronauts are probably unlike humans, so the starting point for scientific discovery may have been completely different as well.

That statement presumes there were astronauts. Where is the proof?

 

[Tahuti]

That statement presumes there were astronauts. Where is the proof?

There isn't as far I am aware of, we are dealing with hypotheses here.

 

[Senethro]

The Aztecs did not have the wheel. Greek fire never reappeared. The order in which all that was invented was different for the differing civilisations as well. The astronauts are probably unlike humans, so the starting point for scientific discovery may have been completely different as well.

Pre-1500 Americans did have the wheel. Everyone has the freaking wheel man, even if they're just sticking de-branched trees under a block of stone. Wheels tend not to be useful without animals to pull them. Llamas and alpacas can lift, but cannot pull (youtube videos of slowly moving super-light plastic carts and harnesses notwithstanding)

Greek fire is a bunch of drama over nothing. Incendiaries and explosives of many varieties were in use before and since. The exact recipe is unknown but it has no properties that make it particularly surprising.

 

[~Corsair#01~]

I once read some articles about Carthaginian colonies in Australia and North America.

At the time, it seemed like the most absurd attempt at taking a small number of highly ambiguous archeological findings and extrapolating them into a thriving culture which never really existed that could ever be posted on the internet.

Then I read this thread.

 

[Tahuti]

You haven't effectively counteracted my point, only nitpicked on minor details.

 

[Willem]

There isn't as far I am aware of, we are dealing with hypotheses here.

Well until we have actual proof of their existence, the idea that they may have had an alternative technological line is moot.

 

[Senethro]

You haven't effectively counteracted my point, only nitpicked on minor details.

You didn't make a point. You listed an untruth and an irrelevant example, both of which we have archaeological and written evidence for, and then made an unrelated conclusion about technologies that don't leave archaeological evidence.

I mean, yeah, this is all stupid but there are rules and procedures to follow!

 

[Tahuti]

You didn't make a point. You listed an untruth and an irrelevant example, both of which we have archaeological and written evidence for, and then made an unrelated conclusion about technologies that don't leave archaeological evidence.

I can at least make the unrelated conclusion that it is futile to further debate you.

 

[Willem]

I can at least make the unrelated conclusion that it is futile to further debate you.

No offence, but you haven't offered anything that can actually be debated.

 

[Senethro]

I can at least make the unrelated conclusion that it is futile to further debate you.

I conclude your mouth is unrelated to a brain.

 

[Glassfan]

Back in the day, an oft discussed topic over Saturday night campus pizza and beer was this;

If Cro-Magnon (modern man) has been around for 50-100k years, than why has civilization only been around for the last 6-7k?

The answer seem to be in the unpredictable irregularity of the ice-ages. During H. sapiens' early days there were a series of short interglacials - most of them less than 2-3k years. Our current understanding of prehistory is that it takes at least that long for a culture to coalesce around (typically) a fertile river valley and to begin to advance into a civ. So early civs might have just been forming up in Europe and then, SMASH - the next ice age crushed them under two-mile-high glaciers.

Our current interglacial has extended well beyond 10k, so civs have formed and spread all over. Scholars have often wondered why our climate has been so fortuitous, but if anthropogenic warming is true, we may very well ourselves precipitate the next ice age.

So I suppose the point is, that if earlier cultures existed, they wouldn't have gotten very far along before new glaciation stamped them out. Early cultural remains would have been fairly primitive (no reinforced concrete military bunkers, no satellites, no plastics) and either decayed or were weather-eradicated. The few real remains, if any, may have been misdated (early archaeologists being frankly somewhat careless and sloppy) or in the hands of pot-hunters. The excavation of glacial moraines, however, reveals no evidence of these theoretical early cultures.

I'm grossly oversimplifying. By "SMASH", for instance, I mean a series of long term destructive processes initiated by radical and unrelenting climate change. These would include but would not be limited to desertification, agricultural failures, herd dieoff, social upheaval and breakdown, Internecine wars over remaining resources, zombie attacks, etc., etc.

I call this my DGSBS (Drunken Grad Student) Theory. And by the way, where were von Daniken's helpful aliens when our ancestors really needed them?