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Comment by aosaigh | Hacker News Reader

I’m always (naively) surprised that these sites continue to contain new finds like this. I always assume they've been fully mapped and searched.

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My impression is that archeologists are drowning in way more ancient sites than they can possibly investigate.

For example, these thousands of unexpected ancient sites they've found in the Amazon using Lidar recently:

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/feb/06/a...

One unfortunate reality is that looters will get to these places long before archeologists. I think they try to keep things secret, but there are limits to what you can do.

I think this is where a few humble billionaires can make a real difference, in case they're reading this :)

Correct, most archeology digs take decades because A) its hard work and you have to do it very precisely (and also we're always inventing new tech and wondering how to keep stuff in the ground) and B) There's very little money funding it - active digs might be a few weeks a year in the best of cases, and the rest of the time just trying to get money to pay the grad students basically nothing to help.

When I've gone down the Wikipedia article of ancient sites, it's amazing how many have basically been visited for 2-3 summers by a professor and some grad students, with years or even decades between visits due to funding issues or whatever

To say archaeology has shoestring budgets would be insulting to shoestrings. When I was working as a field archaeologist, I would do expeditions on less than what I make in a month working in tech. There were times when I had to seriously consider the financial trade-off between the food budget and sample dating.

The financial situation is even worse today.

Bouncing off your point - I was at the Great Wall and someone told us that after the need for the wall disappeared, villagers were looting bricks from the wall to build the things they needed until the government stepped in to stop it

That's basically what happened to the pyramids in Egypt. They were smooth-sided for over 3000 years.

Even more wild is the fact that when we're talking villagers looting the smooth-sided pyramids for stone, we're talking about the Roman Republic era and around the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty under Cleopatra.

Most of them survived well into the middle ages. There was an earthquake in the 14th century that loosened the casing stones and knocked quite a few loose. After that is when looting the stones really took off.

To my understanding that was pretty standard throughout history.[0]

Why go chisel out new rocks to build your mill when there's an unused pile of them _right there_?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spolia

They truly are - and like you mention - modern tech is turning up more and more.

Traveling in Belize, we happened upon multiple un-excavated pyramids and other buildings. The landowner or residents knew about them and pointed them out to us, but yeah, no one has the budget to investigate even a small percentage of what's out there.

Funny enough, I was just reading about Percy Fawcett’s doomed expedition to find the lost city of Z in the Amazon and turns out he has been fully vindicated. He went against the general scientific consensus of the time that complex civilization was impossible and the area he is thought to have disappeared in the Xingu Park has since been found to hold a civilization of 20+ settlements and a peak populations of up to 50,000 inhabitants.

Wild stuff.

After watching >9000 hours of time team the impression I get is that they tend to take what they believe is a representative sample of a site, and leave the rest for future teams.

Time Team would often go "This site has been dug before BUT we get to put our pits down in this untouched area" or "OMG Totally new site but we dont want to wreck it for the next guys"

Etc etc/

Modern archaeology intentionally leaves some significant pristine area to preserve the site for the future, perhaps future methods, perhaps just to leave some stones unturned forever. It's a pretty easy conclusion to arrive at given glaring mistakes of archaeology past.

That’s a wonderfully responsible approach to archaeology. I hope we continue practicing those lessons learned from past mistakes.

Man, there's so much left to discover! South America, Turkiye, who knows, but so much.

One fascinating site not getting much attention is Zernaki Tepe, near the Van region. Some of it, if I've not confused it with something nearby, is buried under 40ft of sediment and its accessible parts exhibit some of the finest masonry work yet seen, with interlocking blocks, etc.

Estimated at 14k years, and probably older than Gobekli Tepe

Zernaki Tepe is obviously not from 14k BP. It's a grid plan urban center with aramaic inscriptions and thrown potsherds that use slip. I also can't find any papers actually arguing that it might be anywhere near that old, only some vastly more reasonable iron age dates.

What are you looking at that indicates otherwise?

I'll have to bow a bit in shame. I was introduced to that site through rogue archeologists that differ with official consensus. Additionally, the surrounding sites nearby convolute my ignorance.

That said, while I can't readily disgorge quality references on this area, I suspect we'll soon have some compelling arguments that unsettle current consensus.

I apologize for introducing an otherwise fascinating archeological discovery with feeble or possibly garbage data. And I hope it does not discourage anyone from remaining up to date on this area or actively pursuing it.

It is funny; "karakol" in Turkish means a police office/building. I wonder is there is a link in the etymology?

These are major breakthroughs.

Looks to me like this couple is making progress over the long term that few individuals would be able to match.

And now getting it right after 40 years by concentrating on things that you just can't expect to be within reach after only 30 years or so.

Some of the most admirable type of research that most people are ever going to see.

Same - it’s like when I was kid and thought we had visited every planet but meanwhile we’ve only been to the moon a few times.

tip of the iceberg..

There is a lot to cover and almost all of it is well hidden. Biggest culprits being the Ocean and dense unreachable forests.. Also there is the constant of change/time which has erased the vast majority of the past.

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