Symbols Found in Ice Age Caves Across Europe (2015) | Hacker News Reader

Symbols Found in Ice Age Caves Across Europe (2015)

digventures.com

205 pointsda02145 comments

For more substance and less self-promotion, see her master's thesis here: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.929...

There's also a better graphical overview of the signs here: https://frontiers-of-anthropology.blogspot.com.br/2014/08/ge...

Non-mobile link for the latter: https://frontiers-of-anthropology.blogspot.com.br/2014/08/ge...

(Also the former link seems to be broken?)

Maybes mods could add (2015). Seems little more than a regurgitation of the TED talk it links to multiple times entitled “Why are these 32 symbols found in ancient caves all over Europe?” which can be found here:

https://www.ted.com/talks/genevieve_von_petzinger_why_are_th...

You're right. I still thought it was ok to post the link since it does include a nice graphic of the symbols at the start of the article.

Not only across Europe, they are more or less similar all over the world.

https://visual.ly/community/infographic/science/prehistoric-...

Purely, on a lighter note:

0 - All Time periods

1 - All Time Periods

# - All Time Periods

Please ensure your password contains at least one digit and one special character! Will we ever change?

We've gone from 32 symbols of representation to 32 bits!

PS There was also a null symbol.

X - All Time Periods

PPS Too bad they forgot to write comments, or we would know what all the symbols mean!

# - All Time Periods

I was ready to write this off as early humans ancestors depicting basic shapes of objects in their surroundings, until I got to the upside down and right side up “brush shapes”. I’m not sure what that would mean, something descending and ascending with some type of force or vitesse?

A lot of the signs can be seen as symbols that are easy to draw with the hands. For example, there's the 5-dots and 6-dots symbols. Those are: "every finger of one hand" and "three fingers from each hand". The brush shapes are "bring all fingers together". There may very well be a communicative aspect to the symbols, but I think they were derived from decorative primitives that are kinesiologically-determined.

That would help account for consistency over place and time.

But meaning? I'm guessing something like "# was here".

Possibly ad-hoc way finding, and reference points when lost, to help detect if you're going in circles, or if a change of direction is necessary.

If there are N number of confusing junctions, it would require the same number of markings as a unique mnemonic device to register the steps to escape the confusing area, and jog one's memory of how directions were negotiated the last time.

Or perhaps locations of good sources of food, shelter and so forth

Ancient hobo signs makes a lot of sense, wonder which one says "Tell pitiful story for food."

Seems to be offline right now, here's a cached version:

https://archive.is/oqGa5

One explanation for the universality of these symbols is that they are entopic images - artifacts of the eye and visual system that are perceived during trance/psychedelic states. Maybe associated with a widespread shamanic religion of this time period?

http://entheology.com/research/entoptic-imagery-and-altered-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mind_in_the_Cave

Haven't watched the linked TED video, but this:

>"The fact that the same 32 symbols are repeated across sites that span 30,000 years and an entire content is nothing less than mindblowing. "

Is both quite intriguing (if implication is true) but also raises the question of authenticity (if we're unkind) or at least accurate dating (if we're charitable).

Maybe the video goes into detail. (Apparently, it's claimed that upwards of 60% of the symbols/signs were expressed during the 30 thousand year span --which seems pretty incredible. I mean, the invariability seems somewhat preternatural.)

Slashdotted. Archive link: http://web.archive.org/web/20171227051630/https://digventure...

We call it 'The hug of death' here.

'slashdotted' works just as well (and is even preferred by many)

Except that Slashdot doesn't have a userbase capable of bringing a server to it's knees anymore.

Hardly a unique phenomenon. In society we have so many terms as a nod to their (deceased) inventor(s), or as a nod to a (deceased) person of interest.

"She had her moment in the limelight." - "Limelight" hasn't been used for stage lighting (or anything like it) in over a century.

"The application is tied up in red tape." - "Red tape" as a binding for important documents is now little used outside of handful of places.

"The company bigwigs fired half the staff." - Once upon a time, people in authority wore wigs as a symbol of authority. Now it's limited to a few legal and parliamentary systems; CEOs and the like don't wear them.

Wikipedia still sees "slashdotting" as the general term.

The signs painted in caves have been preserved to this day but at the time I guess that they were also used outside, on rocks and on trees, and that they were lost to time...

With perhaps the exception of dance, the classic arts really are prehistoric mnemonic/communication devices which were made obsolete when writing was invented.

They were so useful though that craving them has been carved in our genes, and we still like a good story/song to this day.

I had never thought about song, story, and dance in a genetic sense before as you laid out here. Thanks for sharing that.

Reminds me of the also unbroken Indus script. With all this computational power, I'm surprised that we haven't been able to crack ancient proto-writing.

I wonder if anyone’s trying to decipher non human communication (dolphins, elephants).

https://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/806287/dolphins-speech...

They've been claiming this one for years though.

However, IF they crack it, it's going to be a game changer; Unlike apes, Dolphins have a much more complex vocal language. As humans we'll be forced to re-evaluate our position on the sentient species ladder.

Of course, this'll all be for nought if the Vogons get here first and all the Dolphins disappear.

> As humans we'll be forced to re-evaluate our position on the sentient species ladder.

I bet that we will just keep trying hard to kill all of them to regain our top position.

Cats.. dogs?

I wonder if our brains have changed so much since then, that we may not be able to comprehend what the symbols originally meant.

Why would "our brains" change? Because we have tv and phones?

Nah, because now we have agrarian civilizations as opposed to tribes of hunter gatherers.

That seems just as much of a change as phones and Internet, seen from the perspective of a brain changing... Last time I checked.. Astronauts do not struggle with farming potatoes on Mars?

Indus script was used by the Indus Valley Civilization, an agrarian civilization.

We see the world differently. IE what was a 100 IQ, 100 years ago would be sub standard today because we have new ways of thinking that allow us to do better abstraction. Plus the we've changed how we see the world. Blue is a relatively new color. It is a recent distinction between what most cultures saw as green.

It's also similar to the Old Hungarian alphabet. Some of the symbols seem to be the same. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Hungarian_alphabet

That was my impression as well (I am likely biased - I'm Hungarian). What's your nationality if I may ask?

They look very much like early British/Norse runes too.

Proto-Indo-European (PIE) origins presumably?

> Reminds me of the also unbroken Indus script. With all this computational power, I'm surprised that we haven't been able to crack ancient proto-writing.

Attempts to crack the Indus script with the aid of computers have been made since at least the 1970s (a large Soviet team went to work on it then), but the problem is that the Indus script may not actually encode the sounds of a language. If it is essentially a set of tamgas or decorative elements, then it cannot be cracked. And even if it encodes the sounds of a language, if that language utterly died out and is unknown to scholars today, then even if we know what the sounds were, we probably wouldn’t be able to determine much of their meaning.

> And even if it encodes the sounds of a language, if that language utterly died out and is unknown to scholars today, then even if we know what the sounds were, we probably wouldn’t be able to determine much of their meaning.

I feel this conclusion rather weak.

As an counter example, consider how the decipherment of the mayan written language was performed [1]. Another one is the hieroglyphs.

Re-constructing how mayan words sounded is still on-going [2].

Also, this type of work is not really possible to "crack with computers" as some have suggested (when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail).

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_script#Decipherment

2: https://decipherment.wordpress.com/

The people that decoded the mayan language had the advantage of having several actively spoken maya languages to work from.

> As an counter example, consider how the decipherment of the mayan written language was performed

That is no counterexample. The Mayan written language was related to a number of surviving languages, making decipherment easier.

> Another one is the hieroglyphs.

The Egyptian hieroglyphs could not be deciphered until the discovery of the Rosetta stone, where the hieroglyphic text was accompanied by translations into Demotic Egyptian and Greek. Before that, there had been attempts for many centuries to decipher the hieroglyphs but they proved fruitless.

The main problem as I understand is that although there are a thousand examples of Indus texts, the longest one is 17 characters. And there are no bilingual inscriptions.

But I do wonder if there isn't a side channel, or just some way of doing it without requiring the usual necessary elements.

> Among the elaborate horses, bulls, bears and hunters, there are some other rather less captivating designs – small geometric motifs, etched onto the walls. Until now, they’ve not received much attention.

I would have expected the opposite.

Someone drawing animals and hunters could easily be explained simply by them drawing what they see everyday.

Those other things, though, are harder to explain as merely drawings of things they see.

Not hard to explain: they were simply drawing the glow discharges they saw in the sky. The growing body of theory–research isn't well known yet; for an introduction, see Peratt's groundbreaking paper from 2003:

Characteristics for the Occurrence of a High-Current, Z-Pinch Aurora as Recorded in Antiquity

http://plasmauniverse.info/downloadsCosmo/PerattTPSv31-2003c...

I bet the omnipresent "Sun"-symbol is removed from results, to conform with German Laws and general sentiments. You can find it on Nordic Runes and Tibetan tapestry and American Indian tepee decorations. And it always means "Sun" or "Good Luck" or something positive.

Except after 1945 it does not.

> And it always means "Sun" or "Good Luck" or something positive. Except after 1945 it does not.

The swastika was already quite firmly linked with fascism in Europe by the late 1920s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotta_Sv%C3%A4rd

> The swastika was already quite firmly linked with fascism in Europe by the late 1920s.

It wasn't. If anything, it was linked to preservation of tradition and conservatism. I know from my grandparents, who are Polish Highlanders, that it also doubles for holy cross, and thus was used in sacral contexts or on tombstones:

https://slowianowierstwo.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/1095605... https://slowianowierstwo.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/76313_3... https://slowianowierstwo.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/1274539...

European fascism builds on pride and glorification of national symbols, and reuse of those. For example here's Polish Fascists symbol that dates to '30s:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Green_flag_with_symb...

This is arm holding sword, and symbol was created as replacement for original symbol that was legendary sword that first polish king used to strike the gates of Kiev as he was establishing borders of first Polish Kingdom.

Likewise symbol of Italian fascists was the Fasces (notice ), roman symbol for power and rule of their government.

Spanish fascists used crests of their past royal family, the Falanga:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bandera_FE_JONS.svg

Here's Croatian fascists symbol:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Usta%C5%A1e_symbol.svg

Swastika was something that Germans adapted for their fascist movement, and it spread from there after the war, but saying that before war the swastika was already firmly linked with fascism is not true.

The Nazi party adopted the hakenkreuz (swastika) in 1920. So yes, swastikas were associated with fascism long before WW2.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika#Nazism

Thank you for understanding my point, which wasn't that the swastika was a longtime fascist symbol, but rather that the Nazi Party had accomplished its transformation into one by the late 1920s.

I don't believe that Swastika symbol is as ancient as these. Wikipedia tells me that it appears for the first time in 3000 BCE in India.

Also, regarding "German Laws and general sentiment", I invite you to read this detailed blog post[1] on the history of Svasti symbols in Unicode[2] and the controversies around getting them in Unicode.

Edit: Typo. Links corrected.

[1]: https://babelstone.blogspot.com/2006/02/when-is-swastika-not...

[2]: https://unicode.org/cldr/utility/list-unicodeset.jsp?a=%5B%3...

Why is it so controversial to have a swastika symbol in unicode? The hammer and sickle had no problems and it is also banned in some countries.

I didn't express an opinion there as you seemingly assumed. I just stated that it ended up becoming controversial and this can be seen by referring to the documents and historical records of the meetings discussing the subject. One could see what I'm talking about if they at least skim through the blog post I linked to in my comment.

Also, controversy is not a comparative matter (and this one indeed is an opinion).

Edit: Grammar.

I'm not accusing you of anything. I just think it's ridiculous for the Unicode people and others to have such a double standard. It harms tibetans, and it shows a disturbing political bias.

I don't know what you're referring to. I'm not here to defend Unicode Consortium (there's no such a thing as "Unicode people"), but disturbing as it may seem to the rest of us, any organization has its own political biases. Probably you should start a better detailed thread on the mailing list about your concerns. That would be a more appropriate forum for discussing your concerns.

I don't see any sources regarding it being found in North America or Northern Europe, specifically Runes. Can you share?

Google "Tursaansydän" and "Hopi Swastika".

1st row, 3rh d column, there's your sun symbol. Swastikas came much later, sun does not look like a swastika and has nothing to do with "Nordic Runes", whatever that might mean.

Nothing to do with German laws either, considering they don't cover research. Please help stop this nonsense.

This really reminds me of "hobo signs" : http://www.angelfire.com/folk/famoustramp/signs.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobo#Hobo_signs_(symbols)

Every time I see something like this, I'm reminded of one of my favourite crackpot/artists of all time, Stanislaw Szukalski and his mad theories about "Protong", the proto-language of a civilisation that was destroyed by a cataclysm some 65,000 years ago, which - according to him - was the language of the first human civilisation across the globe, and which survived - barely - as a 'forgotten remembered language' in ancient pre-historic glyphs.

In a nutshell, "Protong" was the global human language that was spoken across the globe - until the planet suffered an enormous 'flood-like' cataclysm that split this civilisation into shards and pieces around the world. The survivors of this cataclysm clawed their way back to land, and in an effort to warn future humans of the danger, encoded many of the glyphs of Protong into their cave art. Per Szukalski this can be demonstrated by the fact of many common glyphs among a wide distribution of different cave paintings - the fact that the 'neck ring' is a key element in many paintings vastly separated by geographic distances, and the significance of such glyphs as a 'cup or water vessel', and so on.

Szukalski believed he was able to decipher these glyphs in a way that hadn't occurred to researchers before him, and he made an entire philosophy out of his personal discoveries.

While I still remain highly sceptical of his ideas - and I am especially dissuaded by the racist form of this philosophy that later evolved from Szukalskis explorations into ancient/pre-history art (Zermatism, the idea that the human species is in competition with another race, "Yeti-like", which brings about perpetual downfall among all "noble societies"), I nevertheless remain fascinated by the idea of using "Protong" as a means of appreciating the meaning of pre-history. From the Programmers Mind, its kind of like discovering the mnemonics for machine code, after having spoken nothing but Lua.

So, I do wonder if he wasn't onto something with the idea of Protong being an underpinning to all ancient/pre-historic art forms. If this sort of thing is of interest - and I mean it in the most casual sense, because I have absolutely no interest in promoting the racist Zermatism - then I encourage HN readers to have a look at Protong. The book on the subject "Behold - The Protong!!" is a wonderful coffee-table item, if you care for these things. I don't know of any other on-line resources which cover Protong - its a kooky subject indeed, so this is very surprising to me - but I do encourage the casually-interested to have a glance. It may - or may not, indeed - provide a bit of context to understanding pre-historic cave art. As a fan of this, I think its neat.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2118037.Behold_the_Proto...

More on Szukalski here:

https://www.kookscience.com/arch/Zermatic.html

Warning: definitely kook science, but a fascinating though experiment nevertheless.

I had no idea Yetis were into Communism! :-)

Thanks for this, it makes entertaining reading on a cold winter's day in front of a roaring fire.

It is, indeed, a rabbit-hole. But I like the Protong bit personally!

To under exaggerate this time, one rectangle is drawn inside a cave and another rectangle is drawn inside another cave 1000 years later. 25,000 years later modern man finds these rectangles drawn on the walls and is astonished? Is it not just kinda a given that before speech communication there was drawn image communication (like point at images and grunt)? I mention the 1000 year gap only to point out that they probably moved around and other groups took over caves that were inhabited by other groups before...thus why there are mimicked across europe. ((25000 also being just an arbitrary number for discussion purpose because im not an anthropologist or geologist))

>Is it not just kinda a given that before speech communication there was drawn image communication (like point at images and grunt)?

No, not really a given at all.

And those are not images -- they form a symbolic language. If we're merely talking about "point to images and grunt" it would concern drawings of animals and stuff, not abstract symbols. Those are already a kind of language.

And even if it was, having the same stock library of symbols used more or less across continents and ages is important enough in itself.

What are the corresponding Unicode code points?

Neolithic man did not have unicode; they were forced to make do with UCS-2.

Here's a try:

Aviform: ︷ U+FE37 PRESENTATION FORM FOR VERTICAL LEFT CURLY

Circle: ◯ U+25EF LARGE CIRCLE

Claviform: 1 U+0031 DIGIT ONE (Or anything confusable with it [1])

Cordiform: U+2661 WHITE HEART SUIT

Crosshatch: # U+0023 NUMBER SIGN

Cruciform: × U+00D7 MULTIPLICATION SIGN (or anything confusable with it [2])

Cupule: U+26AC MEDIUM SMALL WHITE CIRCLE

Dot: · U+00B7 MIDDLE DOT (or anything confusable with it [3])

Half Circle: ◡ U+25E1 LOWER HALF CIRCLE

Line: ⎯ U+23AF HORIZONTAL LINE EXTENSION

Negative Hand: U+1F91A RAISED BACK OF HAND

Open Angle: ⦣ U+29A3 REVERSED ANGLE

Oval: ⭖ U+2B56 HEAVY OVAL WITH OVAL INSIDE

Positive Hand: U+270B RAISED HAND

Quadrangle: ▭ U+25AD WHITE RECTANGLE

Serpentiform: U+1F40D SNAKE

Spiral: 1F300 CYCLONE

Tectiform: ⤉ U+2909 UPWARDS ARROW WITH HORIZONTAL STROKE

Triangle: ▽ U+25BD WHITE DOWN-POINTING TRIANGLE

Zigzag: ⦚ U+299A VERTICAL ZIGZAG LINE

Edit: formatting.

[1]: https://unicode.org/cldr/utility/confusables.jsp?a=1&r=IDNA2...

[2]: https://unicode.org/cldr/utility/confusables.jsp?a=%C3%97&r=...

[3]: https://unicode.org/cldr/utility/confusables.jsp?a=%C2%B7&r=...

All the symbols are simple, I wouldn't be surprised if many children around the world scribble similar signs while doodling. It seems likely to me that the signs arose in disparate locations through sheer coincidence instead of through an active Paleolithic common culture or a miraculously preserved memory of some ancient heritage - the ultimate source of the symbols - shared by far flung groups.

Hashtag was popular back then :) https://imgur.com/OUDrRjy

The had to invent it, otherwise they wouldn't be able to write shell scripts.

The mainstream view of our history has some massive unexplained mysteries. For example the ability of ancient people to work with massive slabs of stone in a way we'd struggle to do now even with modern machinery. Not just the Pyramids and Stonehenge, but the stone foundations at Cuzco and also Baalbeck temple which apparently has foundational stones estimated to weigh 1000 tons.

This is just 'ancient astronaut' nonsense. If you gave modern people some incentive to move big stones around without heavy machinery they would figure out how to do it in a couple of months. It's just not hard to do, and people have been moving much larger pieces of stone during recorded history, so we know the techniques used perfectly well.

Lots of the obelisks in Rome are far larger than any prehistoric stones moved or worked, and we know how they did it and it's impressive. Impressive isn't the same as an unexplained mystery.

Who mentioned ancient astronauts?

Archeologists don't seem to be as blasé as you about this:

> Nothing puzzles archaeologists so much as impracticality, and although the karst topography of Baalbek demands strong foundation stones, and although one big stone is easier to move than many smaller stones, the pillars holding up the temple’s podium, van Ess says, are bigger than they need to be. In fact, Baalbek is one of a series of ancient projects that are under rigorous study by the Germans for being unnecessarily large.

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/baalbek-myth-megalit...

Though it seems they're more puzzled by the "unnecessary" size of the structure rather than transportation of the slabs.

Also, somewhat ironically, the posted link mentions ancient astronauts.

Archaeologists also aren't structural engineers, usually. So they often have quite different ways of approaching problems.

As an example of what happens when a structural engineer does some amateur archaeology, check out http://theoldexplorer.com/index.php/the-lost-secrets-of-maya...

I found this link to be pretty interesting read on the topic. Kind of takes the mystery out of it though : )

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/03/history-of-human-powe...

Many gothic cathedrals still standing also are stronger than they have to be. Reason? Building was still guesswork at the time and the ones built too weak have long collapsed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauvais_Cathedral is an edge case.

So, it may be lack of structural engineering knowledge. They also may have intended to build something bigger, but realised they ran out of time or money, or the “something bigger” collapsed, and this is a rebuild, reusing parts.

I think, the further back in history we go, the kookier things get - and that this is a positive, not a negative aspect of the experience. We in the modern age have conditioned ourselves to be subjugated to science - well, for the humans alive 20,000 years ago, cave-paintings were science. The fact that we don't understand them now, and have very strong opinions about the nature of civilisation in that period of human history, is more of the effect that time and history have on human consciousness - namely, occlusion and obfuscation. Kooky explanations for the weird and unusual artefacts we discover in the modern age are to be expected - we are as oblivious to the meaning of ancient art/science as they would be, had we a time machine, of our modern rocketry and iPhones and so on.

I think the Imperial View which tends to lead one to discount observations made beyond the lunatic fringe is less valuable than the conjecture and supposition that occurs when someone, perhaps weird and unintelligent, says to themselves "What if ...?" and then subsequently go off to investigate.

Never forget, even Newton was considered a crackpot for a period. We kill and eat our messiahs, after all, it is an ancient and provocative segment of human psyche, that we have been unable to shake the bonds of cannibalistic behaviour in our societies - sure, we're not cooking and roasting on an open fire, unless that fire is a metaphor for the modern thinker, convinced of their own righteousness.

I'm personally unconvinced that there weren't ancient civilisations with advanced technologies, yet undiscovered, which moved mountains for their own purposes.

We need only look at the deleterious effect of technology in our own generation to understand just how banal things can get, vis a vis forgotten science, and specifically technology. Perhaps the ancients did have anti-gravity capable flying machines that allowed them to build these structures - and perhaps the tech was lost in a few generations because of the deleterious effects of "planned obsolescence" at such scale. Unless someone is willing to stick their neck out and ask "What if .. there are UFO's buried under these mountains/&etc.?", we'll never really know.

Of course I understand the requirement that sense trump fiction - however I don't agree that the line is so drawn in the sands and stones of the ancients. There are many, many signs that we do not understand, and yet many clues that there is more to ancient history, and particularly civilizations beyond our comprehension, than there is 'total certainty of fact'.

Heck, even the Pentagon admits it doesn't know it all about UFO's, c'mon ..

> Perhaps the ancients did have anti-gravity capable flying machines

Anti-gravity like that is essentially impossible according to physics.

Even if you decide that you think general relativity is wrong, if a society had antigravity, we would expect to see many more signs of their technological advancement.

Unless of course you want to believe that they used some sort of magic, using say incantations instead of technology.

The point is, we don't know everything there is to know about propulsion. "Anti-gravity" is just a useless phrase, sure, but .. maybe its more of a "gravity-bending" technology, who knows.

That's really the point I think, is being made. We don't know everything there is to know about how the universe works. Just because ancient cultures might have left us clues to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves, doesn't mean we should not indeed check ourselves.

I mean, I'm all for the idea that we discover this kind of technology buried under an old village somewhere. Sounds kind of fun to me - you know, like .. electricity might've sounded fun and exotic at some point ..

> maybe its more of a "gravity-bending" technology, who knows.

We already have gravity bending technology: it's called mass. Gravity is caused by concentrations of energy, which have to be extremely large to generate significant gravity.

How much do you know about general relativity? Are you sure that dreaming about this kind of stuff isn't just a way to avoid learning about what we already know? If we suddenly found something buried under an old village, would you want to learn about that, or do you just want to be able to use it without understanding it?

I would want the people who understand these things to have an open mind about learning more, from such a discovery, were it to happen - and then I'd like everyone to have access to the technology so we can, like, vacation on Phobos and whatnot.

Seriously though, your point is correct. But, obviously, if there were space-faring UFO's capable of impossible speeds, then there'd have to be something behind it all that we are missing. Maybe we'll get some clues one day.

>Even if you decide that you think general relativity is wrong, if a society had antigravity, we would expect to see many more signs of their technological advancement.

Maybe they got the technology, and subsequently used it to leave Earth alone, eh? And maybe it was the relatives they left behind that used that as a motivation for creative/artistic expression, in the dark, back here on Earth?

I mean, this is really the point of these art-forms; open to interpretation. And frankly the notion that one ideal over the other should prevail is, perhaps, a bit ignorant?

> Maybe they got the technology, and subsequently used it to leave Earth alone, eh?

And maybe there's an invisible dragon in my garage. This is not rational thought.

> I mean, this is really the point of these art-forms

My mistake, I thought we were discussing likely possibilities for external reality. If this is just a fantasy game, carry on.

> I'm personally unconvinced that there weren't ancient civilisations with advanced technologies, yet undiscovered, which moved mountains for their own purposes.

This idea is so old it's like beating a dead horse by now. Just the idea that we are not capable of these incredible things just goes to show how little you understand or respect human ingenuity.

> Heck, even the Pentagon admits it doesn't know it all about UFO's, c'mon ..

This didn't happen... ?

Rather, a ex-pentagon guy was recruited by an ex-pop singer guy's nonsense organization, with some nonsense claims.

This is called a PR stunt.

>"respect human"

You say tomato, I say 'contemporary hubris for/against ancient, misunderstood cultures'. I do, indeed, have a great deal of respect for human ingenuity, or I wouldn't be having this conversation with you, presumably a human, in the first place.

>PR stunt

I would say that we've been talking about PR stunts all along, no? I mean, what else could cave-paintings be?

One does not need to look at ancient civilisations for unknown technologies.

If you are somewhat interested in the history of technology, one will quickly see many examples since the mid 19th century of technologies that came into existence and are no more. Due to the way technological development flows, once a particular technology disappears, it can be difficult if not impossible to duplicate it even 20 to 30 years later.

If one reads fiction from the forties, you will find references to specific types of technology (especially in the space opera genre) that were in existence at that time and were highly advanced for that time. Yet, different types of technology have replaced those kinds in the years that followed and onto today.

There is much we do not know about how things were done in past centuries and, surprisingly, we cannot duplicate those crafts today. We don't have the required technology. Yet there are nanotechnologists who are actively studying to duplicate those century old unknown today processes.

I remember seeing a video demonstration of how a single person can erect stones as in Stonehenge. Basically, you lever it up bit by bit by placing a log or b other fulcrum under the stone, off-center, and place weights on the shorter end until the other end of the stone lifts. Add a higher fulcrum on the other side, repeat until the stone is high enough to be tipped into a hole dug into the ground to hold it.

Maybe this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYQBDhkBfr0

That's probably it. The technique is a little different from my recollection, but that's memory for you.

Don't forget they had to drag them from Southern Wales. Getting them in place was just the final phenomenal feat.

It's impressive, yes. And probably we don't know exactly how it was done. But that's not the same as saying it's an unexplained mystery - we just don't know which particular methods they used, even if we know one or more ways in which it could have been done.

"(W)e don't know exactly how it was done" is exactly what "unexplained mystery" means.

As opposed to explained mysteries? /s

An explained mystery would be something for which the method would be non-obvious, but nonetheless the method was known. Like a magic trick the solution of which were pubic knowledge - mysterious but explained in sources in the public domain.

So what's something where we can come up with several plausible methods, but don't have the evidence to conclusively decide which method actually was used?

> And probably we don't know exactly how it was done. But that's not the same as saying it's an unexplained mystery

That is the meaning of unexplained mystery, something mysterious and unexplained.

Almost all of these mysteries are all easily explained by acknowledging we under estimated the abilities of ancient anatomically modern humans.

Indeed. This seems to be the most common fallacy when looking into ancient astronaut claims.

Suppose you wanted to stand a large stone on end?

How would you do it?

Just get a stout log and a bunch of men and pry up one end of the stone and shovel dirt and debris under it.

Then pry it up again and repeat.

It would take a long time but eventually you could get it standing.

So, you've a 45 ton stone to lever up, how do you move the log that would be though enough to use as a lever ... How about the fulcrum stone, how do you move that ... levers will the way down?

Dig a hole beneath the other end of the stone, it turns the ground into a fulcrum.

Which is nearly impossible in some geologies, the extreme being on rock, eg in a quarry.

They started by moving small slabs of stone and gradually moved up to bigger ones. There are thousands of years worth of pyramids sitting around the banks of the nile, and you can see the development. It's not like they started with the Pyramids at Giza, which indeed would have been an unexplainable accomplishment.

Because humans existed and traveled for hundreds of thousands of years (beyond what most average modern folks can conceptualize). We don't fully give ancient peoples enough credit cause they didn't completely fuck the environment up and didn't leave much evidence. Not at all shocking...only our true ignorance being shocking.

could anyone find actual pics of the symbols on cave walls? I spent a few minutes looking and couldn't find any.

They immediately reminded me of "Hoboglyphs", https://weburbanist.com/2010/06/03/hoboglyphs-secret-transie...

Why link a blogpost when you can link the research itself, or its presentation on ted

History keeps getting older..

Technically, history begins with the writing system, around 6000 years ago [1]. Before that is what we call "pre-history".

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform_script#Proto-literat...

Top 32 cave symbols that will blow your mind!

What these researchers found in caves will amaze you!

32 sure signs you're in a European ice age cave!

Discover these cave-dwelling secrets that your real estate developer doesn't want you to know!

What your archaeologist doesn't know about cave symbols can KILL YOU

You may be interested in the podcast audio drama "The White Vault".

It's very well produced.

The only thing clickbaity about it is there is a number in the title. And it isn't a listicle.

Michelin Guide for the modern caveman?

32 = with 5 finger chording or gestures you can get every symbol, should be enough for everybody

I find it suspicious that the set of the most common symbols doesn't contain a dick. Why wouldn't the most common modern wall ornament (in my experience) be popular at that time?

People were probably not talking (or telling stories) about their dicks that much, as opposed to something like "man and woman".

While the symbol may not be very useful for telling stories I think it should still be pretty common because it could be used for "artistic expression", demonstration of dominance, a joke or vandalism.

FWIW, the Romans draw lots of phalluses. http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113411682/ancient-roma... contains many examples.

The Ancient Egyptians did too. I recall examples on a temple wall that illustrate decreasing virility (semen volume) as age increases.

http://www.seiglefamily.com/2008egypt/IMG_4997%20hieroglyphi...

In the tomb of Ti at Saqqara, in a mural depicting a battle, there is a hieroglyph comprising a stylised phallus entering an even more stylised vulva. It is an insult that one warrior is hurling at his enemy. Apparently it is usually translated, somewhat primly, as "Come here, you copulator"; in his Scorn: With Added Vitriol (a collection of invective across the ages), Matthew Parris prefers the earthier "Come 'ere, you fucker."

That article deserves its own thread. TIL instead of using red lights Roman brothels just carved a dick in the ground to point the way.

I guess you have not heard about the Venus figurines?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines

You guessed wrong. Of course I heard and saw the figurine in museums with my own eyes. What's your point?

Is there a vulva too - no not yet RTFA.

Is this the start of Prometheus??!

they don’t quite seem to form a written language

Must be a programming language of some sort :)

Short on Crypto (roughly translated)

Its "interesting" how one of these symbols ended up in one of the unresolved cases of project "Blue book".

https://imgur.com/NB45sQ6

It would be a great start of a movie script :)

No, that is not even remotely resembling what you claim.

Look again, I know the picture isnt the best, but its spot on.

Ahhhhh no, but you might want to check your confirmation bias.

Please don't post snarky dismissals to HN, regardless of how wrong someone else is. It only makes the thread even worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Dang, could you please unban my account? Thanks.

You weren't banned, but your comments were caught by a software filter. Sorry—new accounts are subjected to extra filters because of past abuses by trolls. We've marked your account legit so this won't happen again.

All: it's much better to email issues like this to hn@ycombinator.com, as the site guidelines ask: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. It's pretty random what we do and don't see on the site, but we see all the emails.

Being respectful to the researcher(s) and her/their work, I was thinking that if this a GoT promo, I would be soooooooo angry (and impressed) :)

Thunderbolts project offers an interesting theory on these symbols https://www.thunderbolts.info

I was thinking of the same thing before reading the article, but most of the symbols don't appear to be similar to the ones the EU people talk about. I'm surprised and disappointed about this.

For anyone else wondering what that site is about, it’s pseudoscience:

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Electric_Universe

if you're able to entertain an idea without accepting it, Thunderbolts project has hours of interesting content and some compelling if controversial theories. if the notion that some of your core beliefs are wrong bothers you that much then you'll appreciate the rationalwiki for saving you some time, I guess.

Thunderbolts definitely has (big!) issues: I would say it's a mix of some under-appreciated but real science and a lot of loose theorizing that lacks the mathematical rigor, data analysis, and peer review needed to back it up. However, the idea that petroglyphs are human drawings of planetary-scale plasma glow discharges is actually a sound theory; and it's not Thunderbolts' theory, in any case. See my comment above:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16015017

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