Hm; I thought that Ancient Apocalypse had been debunked here, as a collection of old myths that had been thoroughly discredited, but now presented as current issues. Just an invented-content money grab kind of thing?
You can always tell a conspiracy theory when it relies on some nebulous group of villains to prop it up. "They don't want you to know what I'm telling you". Tell me clearly who 'they' refers to.
Big archeology? Could we get some names? Maybe an interview with some of them? No, just imagine them like the illuminati but dirtier and poorer, and extremely tribal for some reason.
People just aren't as good at organising as the theories demand they are. They would 100% break ranks if there was a chance to make a major discovery and be famous for it, group loyalty be damned.
I have seen exactly what he complains about, many times.
Most recently, the very first reaction was to label him racist. Then he was "dangerous" to The Children.
The fact is, he is wrong in his interpretations, but they are based on evidence. Instead of calling him "dangerous", why not engage with the evidence? Among few places I have seen that done is the "Scientists Against Myths" YT channel, https://youtube.com/@ScientistsAgainstMyths/videos. It is rather off-putting: they forget they are addressing the audience, not the promoters of bad interpretations. You have to endure that to get to the end, each time.
Shows like Graham Hancock's evoke wonder that seems beyond scientists to match. That feeling of wonder is where the next generation of scientists comes from.
It is critically important that scientists say when they don't know something. They should seek out opportunities to mention them, instead of trying to cover them up. Hancock has been right, and historical consensus dead wrong, too many times. He was an early promoter of humans in the Americas before 15kya, and of the comet strike in North America, near (maybe after) the start of the Younger Dryas cold spell, that wiped out mammoths, mastodons, horses, camels, dire wolves, cheetahs, giant beavers, giant sloths, and the Clovis culture; and about megalithic construction dating that far back. There are lessons here on science's ability, and often failure, to self-correct. All of these had evidence "scientists" rejected outright, not because of anything about the evidence, but just because.
There is plenty of evidence that stone bowls were "turned" to grind them into shape, but the first depictions of it we know of show up thousands of years later. What is the history of "turning"? Somebody might make progress on the question someday, but only if they know there is much unknown.
The thing that drives me nuts about him and his show can be found in episode 1. He does some scanning of the temple and finds three underground chambers. He cites them as evidence and speculates that they might prove him right and they are a mere 10 meters below him.
And then he leaves.
What?! This is your whole life's work and reputation on the line and you aren't digging 10m to check? It might take a few days but that's nothing. If it's illegal, will he risk nothing for his conviction? He makes the speculation, seeds doubt and then follows through with nothing again and again.
It's the same as those tv psychics. The whole episode we watch as they get closer to a burial site and then right when they are staring out the car window at some woods with dramatic music, the credits roll. Nothing found again!
The first 80% of the episode is fascinating as he shows us these amazing sites. Then inevitably comes the wild speculation disconnected from anything actually shown. Such a frustrating end to every episode. Wake me up when you find something.
There's usually some legitimate value in fringes. Even when 95%+ of the fringe can be baseless, total conspiracy tier stuff, but calling 100% of it 'misinformation' and creating a culture of banning/discrediting it out-right and finding weak excuses (ie, accusations racist-by-association because others who are in the fringe happen to be racist, like the current western modus operandi) is dangerous and anti-progress.
He tries to stay consistent with the evidence, as he understands it. Speculations are better than suppressing evidence inconsistent with your narrative.
I think that's a pretty serious accusation to make about historians and archaeologists in general, in the context of a discussion of someone who hasn't added to the field, and indeed produces pseudoscientific crap for Netflix.
He may try to stay consistent with the evidence as he understands it in which case it becomes clear he doesn't understand it.
So no, I don't find it inspirational or evocative, any more than I have found talks by psychics, ufologists or homeopaths evocative. They all imagine their beliefs are evidenced...
An accusation richly deserved. Maybe you are unaware of how people were treated when they brought evidence for pre-Clovis Americans? We need not mention Zahi Hawass.
Our expectations for Netflix shows is low. Our expectations for behavior of historians should be higher. Making this be about Hancock would be a mistake.
Well… the whole ‘ancient apocalypse theory’ might be discredited, but the sites they visit date back extremely far into our ancient history. It also shows that pockets of architectural knowledge rapidly advanced and then receded all across the known world. One thing is for sure, the human story is far from a ladder, with periods of around 1000 years of advancements and then everything collapses for a couple generations.
I think it goes back to the OP’s original point… there are some things we cannot ever know for sure but they are fun to learn and talk about.
You're making it sound like everything advanced and then receded at the same time across the world. This hasn't been the case since the end of the last glacial period. There have been recedings of local civilizations scattered throughout history, as well as some large scale regional disruptions (e.g. late bronze age collapse, decline of the roman empire), but nothing like periods where everything collapses globally.
> but nothing like periods where everything collapses globally.
What else but a population bottleneck could explain the lack of any genetic diversity to speak of in humans? No human alive today is more distantly related to you than 37th cousin. Any two random individuals are 99.9% identical. That's weird. For this to have occurred, something must have happened everywhere all at once.[1]
Yeah I don't disagree, which was why I caveated it by saying "since the end of the last glacial period".
Before that, all bets are off, and I personally do consider the Toba catastrophe a possible explanation for the ridiculously low level of genetic diversity in modern humans outside sub-Saharan Africa.
I like this idea. A long time ago, there was one amazingly attractive, irresistibly seductive, incredibly promiscuous and astoundingly prolific breeding individual and sexual athlete: the legendary Don Juan of the late Pleistocene.
Oh, you're right. My objection was based on my own misinterpretation of "pockets" as referring to time periods and/or specific architectural knowledge rather than to particular locations.
> It also shows that pockets of architectural knowledge rapidly advanced and then receded all across the known world.
That just means that this level of architectural capability is easily discovered from scratch when circumstances happen to be somewhat right, but then not enough of a gamechanger to endure when when they are not.
