Fingerprints of the Gods - Book Review

[Cognito]

He did, and I must be missing something because surely a geologist can tell an artificial stone conglomerate from a natural one?

You might be surprised. However, if the geologist is uncertain then there is always chemical analysis, right? In the case of the Bosnian Scam-O-Mids they are only finding what they want to find, analysis or not. Should make for a nice amusement park.

[Digit]

The chemical analysis is what I would expect in a confused situation, it's not as though you need half a ton of material from the site is it?

[Cognito]

The chemical analysis is what I would expect in a confused situation, it's not as though you need half a ton of material from the site is it?

Exactly ... most requests for analytic quantities are specified in grams of material. As long as the retriever doesn't contaminate and/or pull the material from an invasive feature, it's good to go. That's a great reason to have professional archaeologists on site, they won't cheat since their reputations are on the line.

[Digit]

One of the greatest advances in archaeology that has taken place since WW2 is the fact that archaeologists are much more willing to bring people from other disciplines on board. When my interest in the discipline was first aroused such action was not only rare it often was very much opposed. A classical example was the first skeleton of HSN, if the people who examined the bones had been more willing to listen to other people the arthritic state of the bones would have been understood much earlier and the fifty years of poor old HSN as a cretin would not have happened.

[Cognito]

You have a point regarding the poor press HSNs received. They were a cold-adapted species who survived the Toba Eruption and subsequent six year nuclear winter while living in northern climes. Cannot say as much for HSS. However, when HSS entered Europe and co-existed with HSN the climate was more benign than otherwise for that 5-10,000 year overlap. By the time the shit hit the fan with the Last Glacial Maximum HSN was already gone. I speculate (the bane of Marduk ) that HSS would not have made in-roads into Europe if the climate was cold and HSN was still there.

[Digit]

But why HSS took so long to reach Europe, if the time lines are correct, having reached Asia so much earlier I find puzzling. From HSS's view point the Americas were just another horizon when in Asia, so the early dates for migration eastwards make sense, but why not westward as well? Was the western route already occupied perhaps, and if so, by whom? Spreading outwards in all directions, subject to geographical and climatic conditions of course, makes much more sense than a determined march in one direction only.

[marduk]

you need to factor in the ice age and a thing called glaciers to your proposed route march

[Digit]

Quite agreed Marduk. Having checked maps of the glaciation at various times it seems to me that if man made it to the Americas as early as some suggest he should have been able to make it to Europe at the same time. It's been suggested that he was in Australia before reaching Europe, and the ice as far as I know never completely prevented a passage to southern Europe, and again, it has been suggested that the easier route into Europe during the ice age was across the Gib straits, and if he could make it to the islands north of Oz the straits of Gibralter shouldn't have been much of a problem.

[marduk]

Digit
when most people think of the ice age they imagine that the world was covered in ice for its whole 60,000+ years
you need to look into Interstadials and Dansgaard/Oescher Events to work out what was really going on
these both caused periods where the ice retreated and where migration through usually ice blocked corridoors became possible again
then there would be another stadial or Heinrich Event and the ice came back blocking off the route and trapping anyone who had taken it
this leaves people very isolated in the new lands
and isolated people don't usually make it do they
so the fact that they might well have been in both areas as you speculated is highly probable
but as there were so few hwo made it none of who developed a civilisation we'll never find any evidence
as such the fact that there was anyone there at all is meaningless really
because nothing came of it

[Digit]

That is the problem Marduk, the lack of evidence, we have to play the hand we are dealt and much evidence will have been destroyed by advancing ice and fluctuating sea levels. But also why should we assume that fewer numbers made it eastwards than westwards, even if they were at times forced to retreat ahead of advancing ice sheets, the northern coast of the Med would appear to have been habitable. Of course that evidence could now have been erased by the Med rising as the ice retreated, maybe we'll never know. But there's no harm in speculating.

[marduk]

theres no point in speculating either
btw these fluctuating sea levels that you mentioned are a pseudoscientific invention designed to explain away the flood myths from around the world and to allow for speculation about lost civilisations and missing evidence
they havent fluctuated that much

[Digit]

Sea levels have certainly fluctuated sufficiently to remove evidence of any coastal camp sites, which would have been useful. I wasn't thinking large urban centres.

[Cognito]

btw these fluctuating sea levels that you mentioned are a pseudoscientific invention designed to explain away the flood myths from around the world and to allow for speculation about lost civilisations and missing evidence
they havent fluctuated that much

Floods after the LGM are a fact while lost civilisations are a fantasy. Any decent civilisation would leave countless traces above the 125 metre waterline anyway. No aliens or submerged continents need apply. If someone gives me the "Absence of evidence doesn't mean evidence of absence" argument again, I'm gonna puke.

[Digit]

Like I said Cog, I was thinking more along the lines of camp sites by the coast, not Atlantis. The sea would provide food for people without the danger of running down large animals and would unlikely to result in large urban areas, in fact the time period would mean hunter gatherers, who leave very limited evidence of their passage at the best of times.

[Cognito]

Hey Digit, I wasn't referring to you but the lost civilisations crowd. I endured half an argument on GHMB with a guy who was calculating the size of Atlantis' army (he was somewhere in the millions). All that, and the world's population at the time was 4-5 million. I could only get halfway through before tossing my cookies at him!

Coastal delta settlements could be covered and preserved by rising sea levels. Given enough mud wood artifacts could even be preserved due to anaerobic conditions. This is a great area for future archaeologists who have the ability to scuba, etc.