Archaeologists Announce Discovery Of Underwater Man-Made Wall (Very Old)

China Post ^ | 11-26-2002

[Auntie Dem]

How can a stone wall be accurately dated? There is likely no organic material in the wall to make Carbon 14 dating possible, and accumulation of coral or other sea water accumulations could vary greatly depending upon the amount of minerals or aquatic life in the area over the "eons" of time. While I don't believe the earth is only 6,000 years old, I am sceptical of claims of man's presence 15,000 years or more ago.

Of course I guess it is possible the divers may discover an ancient Palm Pilot in the wall whose clock is stopped at 10,000 B.C.

[Bernard Marx]

Religion is religion. Science is supposed to be science. Forcing 'facts' to fit preconceived theories is not science.

[blam]

"If it was flooded by one of the three major glacial lake outpourings, the sea level would have risen abruptly in a week or two. "

Yup. That was Lake Agassiz that covered most of Canada. It was responible for the Younger-Dryas period when it 'broke through' to the Lawerence Seaway.

[blam]

Auntie, you need to get out more often. (smile)

Calico: A 200,000-Year Old Site In The Americas?

[RightWhale]

How can a stone wall be accurately dated?

That is the big question. If the wall is submerged now it can at least be dated to when it was last above water, making some assumptions. But inorganic ruins by themselves would have to be dated by association with other objects and materials. If they find a piece of wood, there is the chance of using dendrochronology, a powerful new tool.

[blam]

"The underwater 'thing' at Graham's site is off the coast of Okinawa and would have been above water level at the end of the last Ice Age ... and it is conjectured that the site was a ruin even before it became a sumberged site, covered by the rising waters of the ice age ending."

I just saw an hour special on this site the other night. Geologist Robert Schott said that he thinks it's a natural formation, he did say that humans may have been present at the site before it was covered with water, but, they did not build it. I trust his judgement. He's the geologist that started the controversy about the age of the Sphinx being 9-10,000 years old.

[RightWhale]

Don't forget old, cantankerous John Anthony West.

[ijcr]

Surely, the big question is how did they get the mortar to set?

[blam]

"Don't forget old, cantankerous John Anthony West."

Yup. I think he is the one who brought the geologist Schott into the Sphinx fray.

[RightWhale]

how did they get the mortar to set?

Concrete can set underwater, it's a chemical reaction. Also, welding can be done underwater. There doesn't seem to be much rebar from 10,000 years ago, not that it rusted away, it just appears steel wasn't used much back then.

[Hot Tabasco]

A whole lot of interesting evidence is beginning to pile up, and if the archaeologists in the old guard don't deal with it, a new generation will.

Anticipating similar confusion 10,000 years from now, I'm leaving sticky-notes on all the stuff at my house to help the future archaeologists identify it when they dig it up. If they're lucky, maybe the 10 cent deposit on bottles and cans will have increased in that time also.......

[The Grim Freeper]

Can anyone say "Noah."

[RightWhale]

Sure, but why?

[Auntie Dem]

Do you not think a Carbon 14 dating clock can be inaccurate? Is there a possibility the earth had received bombardment of wildly varying levels of various radiation, or other naturally occuring processes, thus far not detected by current science, that would materially affect the levels of carbon 14 in organic materials, and thus make dating those samples unreliable?

Besides, if man had been on the earth for 200,000 years Windows would be a much more stable operating system by now.

[MHGinTN]

Good catch, blam. It was Bauval, West, and Schott who posed the notion that erosion at the Sphinx site had to have occurred at minimum the end of the last ice age, roughly more than 10,000 years ago.

The site off Okinawa has 'carved' characteristics which would only be possible prior to the end of the last ice age, with carved 'sockets' where posts may have stood and platform or seat type tiers that were also carved. There is interesting 'stuff' out there to be explored, don'tcha think?

[LostTribe]

>Religion is religion. Science is supposed to be science. Forcing 'facts' to fit preconceived theories is not science.

Yep, and History can be a strange mixture of Science (honest Archeology, if you are lucky), Social "Science" (Anthropology, masquerading as a biological science), Political "Science" (raw hidden political agenda) and Theology (the dead weight of Culture & Tradition).

Any one of them can screw up the result called "History". And in the case of finding The Lost Tribes of Israel that is certainly true.

[Bernard Marx]

Good for you. I have a few thoughts about where you could stick some of them,

[Consort]

Pescadores (Penghu)

[Bernard Marx]

The Lost Tribes are your personal obsession. Your comments don't really have any direct relevance to what I posted. You seem to have a gripe about the word 'science' itself.

The 'credo' of the archaeologists I mentioned involved things like belief in the so-called "Clovis Barrier" that prevented them from bothering to even dig below areas where Clovis artifacts were recovered because they 'knew' there was nothing there. That's not very open minded. For lots of reasons (egos, budgets, political correctness) 'discoveries' in archaeology have not been subjected to the same kind of rigorous peer review one finds in physics, say.

Your comments about history are true. History is written by the victors and always contains political spin. But I've never heard history called a science. Ditto social 'science' or political 'science.'

[Pietro]

"Concrete can set underwater..."

Portland Cement sets under water, the Romans invented it. Mortar and concrete are mixtures of Portland and aggregate.