11,000 year old ocher mine in underwater cave | Hacker News Reader

11,000 year old ocher mine in underwater cave

nationalgeographic.com

41 pointsPhithagoras25 comments

HN July 4th thread Scuba diver accidentally discovers prehistoric industrial complex in Mexico [1], the original paper [2], and the spectacular underwater footage included in a CBC News video [3] via joachimma [4]. Yesterday’s HN thread [5].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23730884

[2] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/27/eaba1219.full

[3] https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1760020035814/

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23731910

[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23808749

Seeing those preserved fire pits (in [3]) with the charcoal and wood intact is wild. It looks similar to a campsite that someone used last weekend.

Cave Diver here who's had a lot of dives in that area of Mexico. There is a site call Chan Hol we dove, it has a human skelton/burial site about a 30 min swim in and numerous fire pits. You can make out black marks on the wall/ceiling and remains of the pit itself. They are all over this one cave, it was very active.

The human skeleton is in what could only be called a burial site, it's very high limestone slab, above what would have been the floor and could have been only been placed there when the water table was much lower. The amount of effort suggests a coordinated effort but it's debatable, not all the skeleton is there.

A team of Mexican scientist radio-carbon dated the sites and the conclusion is 11,000 years ago. The body being an adult female.

I'm a certified scuba diver, but cave divers are just a whole different level. They have my respect but I also think they're a little bit crazy. Watching some videos of these guys exploring that cave I was struck with just how skilled and comfortable they are in the water.

I'm a blue water diver, and every time I see these kinds of stories I get serious claustrophobia kicking in.. I wasn't always claustrophobic, just when I started seeing divers doing deep caves, for some reason, pushes the button.

Serious willies factor.

This is a “good” read then. I thought it was really interesting. The pictures of the entrance to the cave are so unassuming too. Just looks like a little bit of dirty water next to some rocks.

https://www.outsideonline.com/1922711/raising-dead

Nice one, yeah a tragic story and cave diving generally is definitely not a hobby I can find myself getting into .. but interesting to hear of the adventures of those with bigger balls .. although quite tragic.

The website of the divers research institute has some neat 3D models of a couple of mining sites: https://www.cindaq.org/copy-of-sagitario-la-mina

Does anyone know if it's possible or even if it's already done, to sample the air in the cave? (i.e. in the pockets that seem to be there).

Could that provide meaningful information on the atmosphere composition at the time it the cave flooded?

I hope someone can explain the fascination with this story to me. I read it when it was on the front page of HN on July 4th, but the story was less interesting than the headline. I’d like to hear why others are so fascinated with this story.

From the research institute that made the discovery: https://www.cindaq.org/copy-of-sagitario-la-mina

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT:

* The discovery has the potential to help us understand the social and behavioral complexities of the region’s earliest inhabitants.

* This new research shows ochre was of great, if not critical, importance to the culture and lives of Paleoamericans, given they were willing to take such enormous risks to get it. Red ochre is the most commonly identified inorganic paint, used throughout human history. It’s considered to be a key component of human evolutionary development and behavioral complexity. Ochre minerals were collected for use in rock paintings, mortuary practices, painted objects and personal adornment. They may even have had medicinal qualities.

* The mining activity from more than 10,000 years ago also shows the early application of geological principles that were only documented 400 years ago.

* Together with the exploration of Hoyo Negro, where the remains of Naia were found, the exploration of these caves is advancing research techniques, especially using 3D photogrammetry and virtual reality.

* The abundance and diversity of animal and plant remains found in these submerged caves enables scientists to recreate what the environment was like for Ice Age Americans.

It is fascinating on multiple levels - first of all, we do not have as complete a picture of the human story as we think we do, and any new piece of the puzzle sure makes the view a bit more detailed.

Second, this is a cave that was being worked by human hands 11,000 years ago, almost completely preserved by the flooding waters. To get to it, required a great deal of modern technical skill - and courage - since its located in a deep, deep cave system. That alone is worth understanding - the means by which this exploration happens.

And then, there is a chance to tie all the pieces together a bit. The ochre from this site can probably be identified in other artefacts (maybe), and show what sort of trade routes and civilisation was happening, at the time.

Because we really do not know enough about our past, it has to be said.

Could you explain why it isn't fascinating? I'm not even being snarky. A preserved 11k year old mine is obviously interesting if you care about early human history. Cave diving is interesting to a lot of people, due to the danger and the access to beautiful or interesting places it gives.

Because it fits in with is a growing body of evidence that human settlement of the Americas happened sooner and faster than (primarily North American) archaeologists used to say. And that it happened along coastal routes that have since been flooded due to rising sea levels in the post-glacial period. And as coastal archaeology has improved we're starting to see more and more of this. And the dates keep pushing back.

If anyone would like to get involved with cave diving, it’s somewhat accessible. For about $5k in training, $5k in equipment, and perhaps four weeks of time you can gain the experience and certification necessary to dive caves.

I thought that cave diving was much more dangerous than scuba diving. 4 weeks really?

It is incredibly dangerous in comparison (as a scuba diver). These courses generally have a requirement of being a very competent diver (hundreds of logged dives, for example) and they just won't pass you if you don't know what you're doing. Cave divers take things very seriously.

I have a "full cave" card and about 100 post-certification cave dives. I have been actively ocean diving and even doing wreck diving, which are overhead environments, but I haven't been in a cave in 10 years. I still likely take a refresher/checkout course to polish my skills with an instructor just to be safe if I wanted to cave dive again. Your instincts are what can kill you in a cave diving.

But it's worth it, you visit places that few people have seen with their own eye and it's safe if you follow the rules.

You should feel privileged to consider investing $10k and a month's worth of time "accessible".

They did say 'somewhat'

Obviously not everybody has that kind of extra money, but a fairly large portion of this sites user base is likely to be comprised of tech professionals with higher-than-average incomes.

This episode of the Joe Rogan podcast is with "master builder and architectural designer, teacher, geometrician, geomythologist, geological explorer and renegade scholar" Randall Carlson.

Randall talks a lot about a flood happening ~12.000 years ago, during a period known as "The Younger Dryas" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas).

Key moments for anyone who doesn't want to watch the 3 full hours are:

0:04:16 Homo sapiens idaltu, oldest modern human skeleton> 7000 generations of humans

0:05:45 new discoveries lending credence to Graham Hancock's thesis

0:06:22 Gobekli Tepe

0:07:30 Tunguska Event, speed and kinetic punch

0:08:27 Possible reason for purposely burying of Gobekli Tepe

0:11:15 Cleopatra < Great Pyramids

0:12:28 Scale of potential loss of human civilisation due to massive impact event(s)

0:14:20 Oxygen isotopes in Greenland, summit ice core samples

0:17:18 Implications for our modern mainstream model of climate change induced catastrophe

0:24:00 The limited scope of the modern climate change debate/'consensus' view and the danger of that, see 0:38:38

0:26:25 Greenland Ice Sheet project history

0:27:31 Little Ice Age, important context

0:29:00 Two periods of global cooling in the last two thousand years

0:30:32 Holy Grail Quest Stories

0:31:33 Dendrochronologists' discovery of stunted forest growth in northern hemisphere in the period of the Grail Quest for 8-10 years, supported by historical records of the time leading to Justinian Plague

0:33:20 Recovery, brought on by return of warmth, 900AD, medieval warm period

0:35:06 Cathedral building phenomenon, ended by Little Ice Age, Black plague

0:38:38 Why are we ignoring this evidence? The problem with the IPCC

0:40:59 The real Inconvenient Truth

0:42:00 Eemian interglacial period temperature oscillations

0:42:22 Oboriginal tales past down through oral tradition about sea levels, analyses by archaeologist W. Bruce Massey

0:45:59 Younger Dryas

0:47:56 Rate of sea level rise, not smooth

0:48:43 Late Pleistocene mortality graph, ~120 species of mega mammals went extinct

0:50:00 Dominant hypothesis of "overkill" or "blitzkrieg" to explain the extinction of the mammoths..

0:52:13 Founding fathers of geology > new school of thought, catastrophism v uniformitarianism

0:54:49 J. Harlen Bretz' proposition of gigantic floods in pacific North West being ignored by peers in 1920

0:56:12 Transition in earth sciences incorporating parts of Bretz his findings, but with a modern example that doesn't scale or compare with Bretz' findings; the new dogma

0:59:36 Joe mentions the problem with the "overkill" hypothesis and Randall adds to it

1:00:05 One of the many mammoth cemeteries

1:01:50 Joe is spooked by Randall's snorting and tries to play it off by referring to the drawing of the "ivory floor" of the London docks covered in Siberian mammoth tusks

1:07:07 Joe asks for Randall's desktop wallpaper, Randall keeps him in suspense for a little longer, shows satellite photo instead

1:11:00 Canada didn't exist

1:14:41 The Bering Strait during Ice Age is exposed, connecting Siberia to North America, 14000-15000yrs ago

1:15:54 Indonesia, modern day v Ice Age

1:16:55 Hundreds of stories that parallel the story of Noah, coinciding with the existing data

1:19:09 if we accept that the stories are based on real events, what do the parts of the persons with foreknowledge imply?

1:19:53 Europe now v during Ice Age, ~15000 yrs ago

1:20:35 Mt. Jumbo, Missoula, Western Montana, shorelines reaching to tops of the hillside

1:21:27 Latreurolle Falls, Basalt layers

1:23:53 West (boulder) Bar giant current ripples, 50ft high

1:25:54 New trend in evidence, geological community is moving in the direction of Randall's assertion, some of the older guard is defending the idea of the jökulhlaups, group of Canadian geologists, John Shaw et al., are challenging this

1:27:50 Where the water for these massive floods came from, asteroidal impact

1:28:45 Impact craters of the last 10.000 yrs, potentially causing massive tsunami's

1:30:45 Modern consensus view of the Younger Dryas, exact match with Plato's account of the subsiding of Atlantis beneath the waves

1:34:20 Recent research, shock-synthesized hexagonal diamonds in Younger Dryas boundary sediments, micro-diamonds, nuclear glass all correlates with massive cosmic impacts

1:35:40 Overspecialisation in modern science, pro's and cons

1:40:02 Listing recent discoveries supporting Younger Dryas cosmic impact hypothesis and narrowing down date to 12.800-12.900yrs ago

1:42:37 Randall mentions gratification as he theorised this 25yrs ago and Joe asks how he became so obsessed with this

1:52:58 What this all means for our species, on a larger scale, big picture, according to Randall

1:53:41 Emerging evidence human population crashed during Younger Dryas

1:55:16 Book of Matthew interesting quote where Jesus talk about what the end of days will look like, what it implies

1:58:33 The moral to all of this, what should we do in terms of consumption of Earth's resources and what to direct our collective efforts at

2:01:34 Error of gradualism in the environmental movement

2:03:27 We'd be fucked without Jupiter

2:03:53 Sacred Geometry and Freemasonry

2:06:58 Difference between modern and ancient architecture, "textbooks in stone"

2:08:48 What is the Masonic Order, "secrets of Freemasons", Masonic traditions

2:12:30 Freemasons as custodians of ancient symbolism, Noah's ark, acacia tree, DMT

2:16:15 DMT as a boon to mankind and the mistake of criminalising it

2:21:34 Climatic optimum after population crash/ Ice Age

2:25:14 Climate shifts again into neo-glaciation, 6000yrs ago

2:27:40 Traumatic effect on consciousness as result of surviving near-extinction event, perhaps gene-deep

2:29:44 insert ''aliens'' meme

2:30:26 Responds hypothetically by calling back to the "7000 generations of modern humans" point and potential advancements of past civilisations, kicks off from there

2:37:58 Freedom to innovate stifled by bureaucracy, encumbering creative processes

2:40:39 Resistance motivates action

2:42:32 parable about making your own way

2:44:05 Why the name "Sacred Geometry"

2:44:56 Architecture, geometry, of our solar system is in perfect balance to allow for us to exist; Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune via bucket mechanism deliver Panspermia to Earth

2:50:02 (Hypothetical) New Jerusalem as representation of our solar system, furlongs, horse racing, 7920, miles, numbers math my brain

This is important because it relates to the interpretation of the data related to the same timelines that raised the sea levels and, therefore, the water table level that flooded these underground caves in the limestone karst.

The interpretation of the data is wrong, but it is the same misinterpretation that is mainstream in the catastrophic climate-change literature.

I watched a snippet of the Joe Rogan podcast sometime ago and Joe Rogan's exclamation at the end of the segment went something like "wow, that is the real inconvenient truth". The hypothesis is tied to the historic delta-O-18 [1] data that is best captured by the LR04 Benthic Stack [2] and fully corroborated by other data sources like Greenland/Antarctic ice cores, and cave stalactites.

The problem is that the delta-O-18 data is often represented as a delta-temperature proxy. It is a common mistake to assume this is real temperature, it is not. The best way to think of the value is that it represents the amount of fresh water trapped terrestrially. The event in the historical data set represents the sudden release of the glacial meltwater trapped in the North American Great Lakes / St. Lawrence River basin. It is fully expected and does not represent a sudden change in temperature. There are also many predictions that can be made based on the event being tied to a sudden influx of fresh water into the Atlantic via the St. Lawrence river.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Δ18O

[2] https://lorraine-lisiecki.com/stack.html

Why is it that this stuff comes up in every thread related to archaeology?

Wrong thread?

Definitely not. Since the time period of when these caves were mined is around the same time a big flood might have happened.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com