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Comment by kodyo | Hacker News Reader

What part was batshit?

I mean, the evidence has only been moving toward Hancock’s theories over the last 30 years, not away from it.

They finally found a turd from Atlantis ??!!

> “Why is there no evidence for this Ice Age civilization when we have plentiful evidence for hunter-gatherers all over the world at this time?” Dibble asked. “The truth is in the trash.” Every living being leaves something behind, but no refuse at all has turned up from Atlantis. “You’re going to clean up all your trash and vaporize it?”

OK, well, attacking the fringiest speculations doesn't do the establishment any favors. The nut of the whole thing seems to be that humans were doing sophisticated things about 8000 years earlier than academia were telling us even 10 years ago.

Speculating on what was happening doesn't seem like something beyond the pale of reasonable discourse.

But that's not news. It's known in academia, you are just not in academia, not at any level where it would matter.

> Speculating on what was happening doesn't seem like something beyond the pale of reasonable discourse.

No, yes it is entirely unreasonable in a world wide publicity stunt if all you have is a napkin calculation and no hard evidence of your own.

Do academics feel like it's important to bring the normies up to speed on what they know or don't know?

It seems like a good opportunity for an enterprising establishment figure to step up and explain why the Hancock idea is wrong. Preferably with an argument that's better than "he's not an archaeologist plus he's probably racist because that's what I'm afraid of being called so that's what I'll call him."

I'd watch that.

Actually, yes they do, in large part. The problem is that the people who produce the documentaries don't want to make "let's talk about modern archaeology" documentaries--they think lay audiences won't lap it up, and so instead want to shift everything to "crusader against orthodox archaeology" (which usually means something akin to Hancock or Ancient Aliens) instead.

They have on many, many occasions. Here's an example: the Nov 2019 special edition of the SAA magazine [1] is dedicated almost entirely to debunking some of Hancock's claims in a recent book and explaining why they're so problematic in context.

The reason you're probably not aware of things like this is that public awareness of the discussion is very one-sided. People like Hancock are fantastic at getting their narrative into the public consciousness. Good academics (almost inherently) are not.

[1] http://onlinedigeditions.com/publication/?i=634462

Considering that it wasn't until the last 15 years or so when those in "Academia" finally started letting go of the long-since discredited "Clovis First" theory, people have have reason to be skeptical. As some other posts have pointed out, the fact is that much of our understanding of the distant past is speculation. We have fragments of history that archeologists are left to make their best guesses about. There are many different guesses and narratives about human pre-history that can be spun from the same set of these fragments that are all equally plausible. That isn't to say that Hancock doesn't make guesses and assertions that are unsupported (he does), but it is to say that the guesses and assertions made by academics are no more credibly or valid than guesses and assertions made by anyone who else who has a firm grasp of the available evidence and good reasoning skills.

And here, I think, we landed on a core piece of the matter. That there are some "ineffable truths" reserved and locked away in the High Tower of Academia. Oh, you're not An Academic? Ha, moron. We know the truth, how dare you question it?

Guess What? Graham also isn't in academia. Yet, he's been talking about this for 30 years, gained a following, and now has a Netflix special.

The ball is in your court. If you want to talk about failures, let's not focus on Graham. Let's focus on this High Tower of Academia. Why the hell doesn't the accepted side of the theory have a Netflix Special? What happened to PBS? Our public schools are a disaster. Published research seems to be more of a contest to see who can use the most complex, flowery, unintelligible language in the Race for Academic Recognition.

THIS is why Academia lost this one. We're on HackerNews, so here it is: You're an engineer with a brilliant idea; but you can't market it. What's the point of the idea? Ideas are nothing without marketing. Its the same fucking thing. If there's Truth out there, scientific truth, it doesn't mean shit unless its communicated intelligibly and repeatably. Academia has institutionally FAILED at this. But, hey, tenure must be nice.

My favorite part about Ancient Apocalypse isn't really anything about the Ancient Apocalypse. Its the fact that Graham spends minutes in every episode saying "mainstream academia hates this, they hate me" and if you have no context you might hear that and think "wow he's being dramatic"; but he's not! Every single reaction I've seen to this show has been one of absolute vitriolic derision. There's startlingly little attempt to educate, present accepted facts, criticize his presentation. Its just "he's racist, this is a crackpot show, fuck netflix for showing this." Its like we just assume, despite a failing educational system, that people should just know he's wrong; and you're dumb for thinking he's right. His theories are out there; YouTube is free; shoot him the fuck down. I want to see it.

> Oh you are not an accademic?

I haven't said that. But how is a legitimate significant inquiry. How dare you (what's that even mean?)

How do you expect people change their mind after they said obv bs, tl;dr the first time they saw the original? I haven't.

> Its like we just assume, despite a failing educational system, that people should just know he's wrong;

Yeah, no they don't expect that, when they complain the first time, but they are hoping to give a hint. Hancock hasn't asked the right question (which can be worth more than a correct answer, according to saying).

Except that much of what we theorize about hunter-gatherers comes from relatively modern foragers, who lived in very resource-poor environments and were thus unable to transition to more complex societal arrangements. Ancient "hunter-gatherers" may have been very different, and Gobekli Tepe is suggestive of that.

"Relatively modern foragers" did have and still have complex social arrangements and rich trading partnerships.

Göbekli Tepe is deeply interesting for being an apparent transition between fully nomadic living and the first permanent cities in Europe, however Graham Hancock is not some sole lone outsider commenting on this, there are many more qualified people providing a bedrock of thought on what may have occurred there with Hancock repackaging their work and adding a twist of magical thinking.

The fact that long-range trading arrangements among ancient foragers have only been posited very recently, and on the sheer weight of evidence, is quite significant and means Hancock has a point. Even then though, there's complex and then there's complex. Having more resources around means that people can devote time and effort to something other than bare survival--and that turns out to be one of the main factors behind complex societies. Any widespread disaster leading to lower resource availability would in turn have social collapse as its unavoidable consequence. Even mainstream historians and archaeologists readily accept that this happened, e.g. on Easter Island; Hancock is just generalizing that same kind of scenario.

The best of Hancock is unsourced and uncredited from the actual progenitors, the bulk of Hancock, that which remains, appears to be pop rubbish and discredited conjecture.

I couldn't be arsed banning the chap, but he's offered nothing original of value that I'm aware off.

Who else should interested people be reading who are attempting to popularize this topic?

Terra Preta might be where those terds went.

>> I mean, the evidence has only been moving toward Hancock’s theories over the last 30 years, not away from it.

I'm sorry. What? More raw research has been conducted in the last 30 years than in the entire history of archeology up to that point. Absolutely none of it provides even the slimmest speck of confirmation for this guy's nonsense.

He predicted that monumental construction dating to the end of the younger Dryas would be found. It was.

He predicted that a comet strike at the onset of the Younger Dryas would be demonstrated. It was. 30+ genera suddenly vanished from North America, along with any hint of Clovis toolmaking.

He does better than anybody with his qualifications has any right to. His wacky speculations trace back to unaccounted evidence.

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