Graham Hancock smiles.
Here we used canopy-penetrating LiDAR data over 4,430 km of flight to define the geographical distribution and quantity of earthworks in this region better. On the basis of both existing data and our LiDAR documentation, we show that this cultural area alone contains as many earthworks as previously estimated for the whole of Amazonia. We also propose that the total human population of the area in 100–300 ad was 1.25–3 million people. If similar results are found elsewhere in Amazonia, the total precolonial population density and its effect on the current Amazonian soil and forest structure, biodiversity and even some modelling of the global climate should be re-evaluated.
Isn’t Hancock the guy who was ridiculed for suggesting our ancestors were not dull witted isolationists who spent their days killing outsiders and nearly starving to death? That they all somehow invented many of the same things at around the same time without any contact with each other is obviously a much better, and more official, explanation. After all, if a university educated PhD can’t figure out how to do it, it can’t be done.
Oh dear lord. This again. First of all, none of this has anything to do with Hancock’s von Daniken-level grift. Second, yes they’ve found a lot of earthworks. That’s exciting, but not really very novel – it’s been known for some time that there likely was a lot of pre-Columbian activity in the Amazon rainforest, we just didn’t have the money or resources to investigate. Absolutely nobody was claiming that the existing sites located via deforestation were the only sites to exist, ever. There’s no conspiracy to suppress anything going on.
Last of all, virtually all of their claims about population density and activity are based not on site surveys but computer modelling. You remember computer modelling? That thing we all agree is bollocks when it comes to climate? But when it comes to this weird digression is apparently okay?
As a final note, overblown claims based on scant evidence are de rigueur in archaeology. It’s how you get grant money. Look at this paragraph:
They’ve gone from finding the remnants of ditches to “arts, dance, music and sport” in one paragraph. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
I only post these to trigger you, Daniel .
😀
Well climate change is based on computer modelling too. And there are an infinite number of variables to consider in that regard.
Well, say what you want, but the Lost Civilizations guys aren’t taking away our cows or taxing us to reward themselves with windfarm contracts and projects to spew tinsel into the stratosphere.
Yet.
They’ve gone from finding the remnants of ditches to “arts, dance, music and sport” in one paragraph.
Don’t get me started on man’s ‘evolution’ from chimps.
I agree with your comments, Mr. Dream, but still consider these findings significant; see my comment below. These are more than a lot of earthworks, they were organised field systems, drainage canals, roads and towns on a massive scale.
I want to see some excavations and understand who lived there and when.
I don’t care how many earthworms there were! I… oh, wait, sorry. My fault.
“There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
You forgot to credit Mark Twain for this quote…
“We also propose that the total human population of the area in 100–300 ad was 1.25–3 million people.”
Some propositions should be stuck where prepositions don’t shine.
+/- 875,000 LOL
How many unmarked graves?
I’m shocked that Nature allowed the authors to use “AD” to describe the era. Some DEI hire’s asleep at the switch!
Bear in mind that we have been bludgeoned by the eco-freaks that the Amazon represents the lungs of the Earth and the locals have no right to exploit the land.
Well, it is clear now that the locals had, for at least a millenium, exploited the Amazon while improving the otherwise poor soil so it is agriculturally productive. And yet the “virgin” Amazon is still there, having retaken all that land.
I own a couple of Hancock’s books. While some of his stuff pushes beyond the sensible, there remain certain inconvenient facts that the stodgy scientists of archaeology cannot simply dismiss.
As far as his admission of computer modelling is concerned, it is useful to recall that modelling with good data can yield decent results. The reason climate modelling sucks is because they start out w/ shit, regurgitate shit & end up w/ shit.
“The reason climate modelling sucks is because they start out w/ shit, regurgitate shit & end up w/ shit.”
Yes! Plus their climate model programs are written to spit out a preconceived result, regardless.
A commenter on Real Climate Science who goes by the nom de guerre of “RAH” said it best:
“Climate model projections aren’t real, they’re the fantasies of what the ‘climate scientists’ who write the models wish would happen. And in that respect, they’re climate porn.”
GIGO
Jornolithps and Scientithps;
when benefactors compromise science they become malefactors
and science becomes the butt of jokes.
… “diverse forms” of art & dance is code for “gay pinkos”
who must (yawn) interject contemporary politics into everything.
The lost city of Z?
For centuries our archeologists and so called experts said the Amazon could not possibly have supported the populations reported by the first Spanish explorers.
“The priest doing the reporting was on drugs,inconceivable that savages could have made lived as the explorers,reported…The science is settled!”
Expert.
X an unknown value\spurt a drip under pressure.
CAGW and Covid sure have rammed that fact home.