This site being what it is a place for all of us to post our own thoughts and beliefs then here is where I shall post mine. I have spent years now about the last 10 reading up on Alternative History and Ancient Mysteries. A hobby that sparked an interest in me as a child starting with the pyramids. You wouldn’t believe the stuff that is available on the subject just online for free. No need to buy into books to study the subject just keep looking around and digging online. Sure you will run up on some subjects that are based just on assumption but some have proof that you must look at and decide what you wish to believe. Many things will leave you open to the idea that maybe we have it all wrong. In fact more evidence than you will find on other subjects like crop circles or big foot sightings. And the more scientific you put it the more things can fall out of scientific reach or reason. I would like to keep this thread going and work at it like a blog with anyone else who wants to pitch in. Tonight I would like to start off with Carbon Dating a method used for making an attempt at finding out the age of things. A method I think is just not what it is cracked up to be.

Carbon Dating - The Controversy
http://www.allaboutarchaeology.org/carbon-dating.htm

How accurate are Carbon-14 and other radioactive dating methods?
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c007.html

Generally if you want scientific work, buy books and read respected journals (Nature etc). Yes, the internet is free, but most of the utter rubbish you find here isn't worth the paper isn't written on (ha ha) and definately shouldn't be used to base research on.

Oh, and if you want a blog, I suggest you set up a blog. This is a forum, and people will generally "pitch in" when they want, ruining the blog-style atmos.

I have to agree with Emma. It does not matter what kind of b******t you want to divulge on the internet, all you need is Frontpage (TM by the dark side) and $6 a month.

Serious historical magazines, on the other hand, are generally written under peer supervision which makes it less likely to have some crap published. (It happens though).

Now about carbon dating. There has been a controversy, especially fostered by those who insist that the world was created on the 22 of August 4674 BC. But except the known fact that carbon dating has an error margin (of max. 3%) they have aported nothing new to confirm their thesis.

Just a quick go-through. Every living organism ingests a portion of Carbon isotope 14, which has remained more or less constant in the environment. As all radioactive isotopes, C14 has a known medium life. If you find something of organic origin (from a human, animal or plant) you can check for the amount of of active and decomposed (depleted) C14 in it, and by the quantity of still active C14 versus depleted establish the age.

Is there an error? yes, but not significant enough to negate the results, after all it is insignificant if a specimen is 10.000 or 9.800 years old, or 100 years or 98 years.

What he said.

Hmm. I'm detecting a nascent "I don't like accepted science because nobody buys into my pet theory" vibe.

--Jaylemurph

Yeah the Christian website is a great non-biased source

Carbon 14 dating can be highly accurate. It does err, especially if samples are
small or contaminated but most errors tend to be to the younger side. Things of
known ages are sometimes carbon dated to test the process and if it doesn't hit
dead on or close then it will say it's not so old as it is known to be. It can be very
accurate and works best for things around 3000 years old, I believe.

Yes, you are referring to Calibration. There were times when carbon levels were different, either from us (last 50 years) or sun cycles, or the ocean releasing some extra into the atmosphere, etc.

There are also other types of dating techniques like archaeomagnetism (mainly in minerals), dendrochronology (tree rings), electron spin resonance, fission track, optically stimulated luminescence, oxidizable carbon ratio, potassium-argon dating, racemization, RCD Carbon-14, thermoluminescence, and uranium thorium dating.
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/dating/

I’m here to learn nothing more. And I never said I had not read any books EMMA and I would like for people to pitch in so that’s why I didn’t make a blog. Pitch in and show your ability to learn from some of these other people in here, or not the choice is yours. But why show your ability to be all bull headed about others just looking for opinions on subjects of choice. What I read on this site from some people may be worth reading as some really smart people do seem to hang out and read these forums and some even post on them. Everything you had to post was just negative about me and not even about the subject I brought into the forum. At least some people gave it enough thought to place a remark about the subject. Who knows EMMA you might have had some good thoughts of your own on the subject but you made me the subject for no other reason than to just be a jerk.

So here is my next link I have found a ton of speculation on this one as I am sure you will also. Looking for your thoughts on it.

http://www.delange.org/Cuicuilco/Cuicuilco.htm

http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Post/746907

http://jcolavito.tripod.com/lostcivilizations/id11.html

Damn I've been getting ripped off, I pay for my internet.

Here is another one.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid/explore/howold2.html

Yea I have to pay for mine Free would be cool however.

I love science and emprical evidence. I don't think you can pick up a textbook today that won't tell you something different 100 years from now.

As far as carbon dating, I have had my suspicions from day one. Yes it is a good tool to give a general idea and we should continue to use until we find something better. But they are basing the rate of carbon decay on our current environment and assuming their specimen has existed in that environment since it died until the present day. For me, that is a big enough error to not discredit carbon dating entirely but to take it as a general measure and not the end all be all of dating anything.

ThePitOfReason, Emma was merely pointing out the lack of reliability of many scientific or for that matter any internet sites in comparison with published work such as journals or books. She may not have been addressing the specific topic you wish discussed, but she was never overly negative nor was she attacking you on your views on this topic. Referring to her as a jerk is unacceptable, name-calling or any form of harrassement is unaccpetable on this forum. Please everyone keep the discussion to the topic.

AztecInca: Perhaps yes and I am sorry for calling her a jerk. Not a problem I read it many times before I put the remark up I posted and maybe I should have spent a few days reading it because it was a little shy of being a jerk. She was voicing her opinion on my credibility for starting a forum on a subject. As if anything anyone on this site had to say was nothing that bothered me. Books are great but if we still had nothing but books and no internet we would still be in a very dark age. You see once all we had was books and what anyone had to say in them was controlled by the government believe it or not. It was called a copyright and if the government felt like your book was acceptable to publish you were granted a copyright. So now what we have is anyone that has information that they were unable to publish then like someone else above mentioned can pay a small fee and start a web site and everyone is reading it. Rather the information is true or not however stands to be seen. Some things do fall under a pack of lies with no solid proof. However for instance like the Project Blue Book that never got published as a book did it? But when the freedom of information act kicked in we could all get it free online. Many things that we once had to pay for or we could never get our hands on is out there. yes you need a computer and internet connection to do it with but the internet against books ? I like them both but have had the ability to get more information online so the way I see it is where you can get information then grasp it for the knowledge that you seek. Sure you need to know the difference just like before the dawn of computers. if you read it in the daily news was it true? If you read it from the National Inquirer was it true? Many times you didn’t know but at least now you knew of it from all angles. Where the information comes from is your first solid source of fact or fiction. Universities publish findings online and even the government as they feel like we need to know them. And you didn’t have to run to a book store and buy it. That was my only point.

No internet dark age? Only those who have never seriously visited a library can say that. I am sorry but the internet does hardly anything to advance knowledge as well as well sorted room of books. As I said before, with $6 and Frontpage you can divulge any crap you want on the internet. And people flock to see it.

Using only the internet as information source is the continuation of using only TV as information source ... the ultimate way to imbecility.

Now back to Carbon Dating!

I do believe in carbon dating that was not why I started this forum to prove it wrong. I do believe it has problems many of them but not all from the science behind it. The link above about the pyramids read that one about how hard it was to figure out where the best place was to get a sample from to carbon date. And one other person above said it worked best for things around 3,000 years old.

If you open a glass jar and put a rock in it that was 20,000 years old and put a lid on the jar and buried it for another 10,000 years. Then dug it up and did a carbon date on the rock what would you get ? Well for starters the rock has been sheltered from the outside of the earth for 10,000 years or has it? Would the glass cause any decay that the rock could be contaminated with? Would the lid rust and leave deposits of rust on the rock from moisture that was left inside the jar?

Layers could become harder to pin point the difference depending on the resting environment of the object. So where do you start with the age of anything ? How deep is the difference between 20,000 years and an additional 10,000 years depending on how the object was laid to rest. That would be your flaw in Carbon Dating and the only flaw I have found. It is a method that works to a point but when we have to back up and say well now wait maybe we might have pulled a sample from the wrong place. It is possible to do that and very hard to figure out where to get the perfect sample.

Now artifacts that have been found in the earth deep in the earth that could point to a alternative history lets look into these and the carbon dating idea. Some where checked while some have nothing but words to back them up. Lets dig around and find what is creditable and has sufficient proof help me out here.

And the pyramids themselves has anyone ever really figured out just how old they really are? I mean sure they went by the star charts and the wobble of the earth and even some carbon dating but do we have a solid foundation for proof of age? 3,000 years old? 5,000 years old? 8,500 years old? I have not been able to locate this answer in its fullest.

As far as I know nobody is imbecile enough to try to carbon date a building exclusively made out of rock... because rock, as non-living matter, did not absorb any C14 when it was used as building material.

To date the pyramids we have to check on the records (Egyptians, as the inventors of the civil servant, were good at that). There we find that some Pharao Cheops paid for the pyramid. This Cheops was a ruler of the 4th dynasty of the old empire.

So, by the records the fourth dynasty ruled from 2707-2216 BC, and Cheops 2620-2580 BC. , by that, and with an error margin of 40 years we can establish how old that hunk of rock is. So our pyramid is in between 4627 and 4667 years old. As simple as that.

According to a wood splinter found in the pyramid (left over from the construction) C14 confirms that by establishing that it (note THE WOOD, not the pyramid) was under construction in 2467 BC . Which is another confirmation of the dating by records.

'questionmark' between 4627 and 4667 years old. As simple as that.

Perfect we have an age that is close enough to what I was looking for. Thank You

What other form of man was around on this planet when the pyramids were built? The Cro-magnon man was around at least 10,000 years ago that still leaves a little over a 5,000 year old gap. I would like to hear your thoughts on this?

The first traces of modern humans are now dated tentatively as far back as 90,000 years ago in the Middle East. In Europe, where they first appear about 35,000 years ago, they are known as Cro-Magnon from the place in the Dordogne, in France, where remains of them are first discovered in a cave in 1868.
With Cro-Magnon man there begins the sudden development of art, which seems to be one of the defining characteristics of modern man. Cro-Magnon culture provides the paintings in such famous sites as Chauvet, Lascaux and Altamira.
The humans of Cro-Magnon, and their predecessors in other parts of the world, are anatomically almost identical with people today. They differ in being taller and more muscular; some of their skeletal remains reveal (contrary to modern preconceptions) a larger brain than today's average. They are classed, with us, as Homo sapiens sapiens ('knowing knowing man').
HISTORY OF STONE AGE MAN
http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainT...?historyid=ab10

The First Humans: Cro-Magnon Man
existed some 40,000-10,000 years ago
http://www.mikedust.com/history/cromagnon.html

Hey , the PIT of REASON i actually really enjoyed reading about early humans and pyramids. i also believe that we could learn alot from pyramids so thank you for posting this........

To start out with, there will always be gaps in history, mostly because written records as hieroglyphs or alphabet did not start until about 3000 BC. Whatever comes before that is a matter of deduction. But then again, history did not start until record keeping was discovered (see Alan Kerpa, Footnotes in History)

If we talk pre-history we have to concentrate on the circumstances in which a specimen was found. Before modern methods the usual system was to date finds by the sedimentation level in which it was found. Mostly this was a useful way to establish a ball park figure. Sediments in different epochs have their very characteristic contents, i.e. more volcanic, more organic, more calcium.... The error margin would be huge (in the area of 30-50%) though. But even if we admit the lower age of the possible extremes we come to 20-30000 years for some human activities. Much older for the first evidence of humans.

If you ever find an older paleontology book in your library you will notice that during the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century there was never an accurate date. And that is because even the best brains in the field could only give you a ballpark figure.

Now, brains.... there are a few animals on this planet that have bigger brains than humans, that does not make them "smarter". Men have bigger brains than women, that does not make them more intelligent (mostly quite to the contrary).

The Neanderthal race is quite a different story. It was one of the classic evolutionary dead ends. The race was so well adapted to the circumstances it lived in that, when the circumstances (in this case the climate and vegetation) changed it simply died out.

Just in case we are all not talking about the same thing, see here:

http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/radiometric.html

If you are willing to experiment a little, the most complicated part to build is the mass spectrometer, but in the Amateur Scientist (a column in the Scientific American) of July 1970 you can find instruction on how to build one with materials that are readily available.

After that, its just a question of experimenting a little. Like obtaining a splinter of woold of a known age and measuring it.

bren789

Thank You!

Some good people hang out in here and some real smart people it seems.

Check these out and send me some remarks:


http://www.mondovista.com/boulders/

http://www.mondovista.com/tia.html

http://www.viewzone.com/oklahoma.southend.html

http://www.viewzone.com/sender.html

http://www.mondovista.com/boulders/ is a good subject for a new thread.

This subject is important here on this thread. I need it as a compassion to other things we will leading up to here. Many things that will be brought out here you may find on other threads because it all falls under alternative history.

In case you missed these I wrote these a year or so back. And I still find myself looking around for new stuff.


Mysterious Earth
http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/column.php?id=64953

How far can your mind go ?
http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/viewnews.php?id=58368

I suspected that you were more of the UFO angle then the religious one ...

OK, if there was no evolution on Earth towards life (from non-organic material to organic) and it was brought from some other planet, how did life start on that planet?

That's not really what a copyright means, at least not in the United States. If it doesn't involve sensitive state material, the government has no legal bearing to restrict what anyone writes and probably couldn't care less about what anyone writes. A copyright is obtained by an author or artist or publisher simply to maintain exclusive legal rights over the content of a book, movie, song, or the like, and subsequently how that content may be used by third parties.

You don't even necessarily need to have a copyright to publish a book. Plenty of people have published books at their own expense without securing copyrights, though they make vulnerable the content of their work because they surrender legal control over it. However, should a book be published through any sort of professional publishing house, it's almost a given that a copyright will be obtained.

A copyright is simply a form of protection over intellectual property. The government is involved only in issuing the copyright and then, if the owner of the copyrighted material brings a suit against someone accused of plagiarism (for example) the government provides the court system to try that person and prosecute him or her, if necessary.

Plenty of people have authored books on alternative theory that have sold very well. This is the case with such fringe theorists as Robert Schoch, Zecharia Sitchin, and Erich von Daniken. Their books have been very well received by laypeople who are not terribly familiar with the full scope of the cultures and histories of civilizations like the ancient Egyptians; their theories are based on twisted facts and distorted evidence that have been bent to fit an agenda. As such, their books may be popular among the general public but they will never be accepted by scholars, scientists, and historians because their theories are easily transparent and dismissible.

The internet tends to be much worse. Anyone can write anything they want about any given subject, and there is no vetting or fact-checking. There is no scholarly editing. Of course there are many terrific websites out there whose material is based on extant evidence that any reader can fact-check by perusing other material published by respected scholars, but the web surfer who's looking for reliable information must be very careful about the information he or she might stumble across.

questionmark


Well I am not that big on the UFO thing as I once was. I guess you could say I am in the middle. I dug around and found some information but that was about all it was.

Now your question how did life get here?

Would you like the truth or just what I believe?

I couldn’t tell you the truth you know that. But I can tell you what I feel about how life got here. I think at the moment from what I have found this planet is what was left from another planet. The big bang if you wish to call it that because it seems like some of the stuff found deep in the earth points to a very long time ago. So what we have is a chunk of a planet that once had a civilization like we do now. perhaps even a bit less modern than some would like to think. And it was destroyed and now the Earth is made of what was left. How it was destroyed is unknown. But that would explain some of what we have. And evolution may have a role in it because if human life formed from many other animal life forms along the way then why couldn’t it just form itself all over again when the time was right?

kmt_sesh

I must say you hit the nail on the head with this copyright thing. From top to bottom without a pause in it anywhere. We might need you hang around in here one of us might write a thing or two and need a copyright on it.

You know maybe I was wrong to throw the copyright thing in because you were correct what was I thinking when I wrote that? Anyone can write anything they wish and even print it and sell it with no copyright if they wish.

Glad to have you aboard thanks for setting me straight on that one.

Not quite right, sorry to say. The fact that you have published a book, article or whatever automatically gives you the copyright unless you have expressively relinquished it (i.e. by signing a contract giving all rights to the publisher). This copyright is valid for lifetime + a certain amount of years (depending on the country you have obtained said copyright) in which the copyright passes to the heirs. In some countries the copyright is also automatically notarized if you send a copy of the work to the national library. In others, such as the US, not even that is necessary, just a proof of publication. (I should know, I used to be a publisher).

The copyright is not a governmental control instrument but a method to secure the rights of authors and artists to their work.

I prefer to stick with what can be proven from many angles, and yes I am happy to hear about new theories.
Your point about starting over again is taken and supported by some physicists, just not the way you think. According to them the universe expands until it runs out of big-bang energy and then contracts again, comprising all matter to a single spot just as immediately before the big bang and because there is too much static matter/energy on a single spot it comes to a big bang again.

The problem there is that not much evidence of what existed before remains.

We begin to understand much more about the first life than is generally known. We have a good idea about how organic matter evolves from methane during electric discharges. Most of the earth's primitive atmosphere was methane, and there is no reason too suspect that there were no thunderstorms. Recently in Antarctica there have been discoveries of microscopic little cavities in massive ice in which the first cells (without cell membrane) could have evolved.

If you take the whole scientific picture, as we know it at the moment, Earth's primordial life started right here on Earth. Could there have been alien matter mingled with it? Yes. But with or without it the result would have been nearly the same.

Now life starting over and over again. Could happen, but I don't think it has yet happened. At least not in a demonstrable quantity because of what we know about geology and paleontology.

There were thousands of demonstrable dead ends in evolution ever since the earth was cold enough to support life, first dead end was algae as dominant species, after that water plants as dominant species and so on up to humans and humanoids as dominant species, which is now. In between there were neither the right conditions nor enough time for the whole thing to start over again. Unless previous life could exist on a planet as hot as Mercury.

ThePitOfReason wrote:


Thanks. In my professional line of work I have to deal with all of these legal issues, so that's where I'm coming from.


questionmark wrote:


Your work must be listed as copyrighted with the government, which means you have to go through the process of registering it with the U.S. Copyright Office. I'm speaking for the U.S., mind you, because I don't know how it applies in other countries. You don't have to register your creation, but then there's no guarantee that the government will be able successfully to help you to protect your creation in a court of law if someone tries to steal it.

Last year my firm did all of the graphics and layout for an architect who wanted to have his own "life's work" put in book form. He did not use any sort of publisher but paid for everything out of his own pocket (must be nice!). It went straight from our business to China, where it was printed. Anyone can slap the copyright symbol (©) on their work, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's binding in a court of law. Having notes and outlines and other kinds of proof of ownership will help, of course. Similarly, many years ago I wrote a small book on the history of a property of land and it, too, went straight to the printer. I didn't formally copyright it. The people for whom I wrote it are free to use it as they see fit.

Sorry misunderstood you above, yes now it is pretty clear....

I think carbon dating is accurate

questionmark



You have got to be a teacher or a college professor of some kind. If your not then you missed your calling in life. I just wish I could hold that much information in my mind all at once. Mine definitely needs a tune up.

pinOi32

I agree I only question the carbon being dated nothing more. Many things can get in the way of the perfect sample to perform a carbon date only. But for the most part it is down to a science now.

No, just had a father who invested many hundred thousands in my education. I just wanted to be a elementary school teacher. He wanted me to take over his bank and his consulting firm. At the end I wound up as photographer, journalist and publisher. So much for destiny.

questionmark

The problem there is that not much evidence of what existed before remains.

Perfectly said not much remains, maybe none at all. But what if things have been found that point towards this idea. We must keep in mind it is only what we read and I have not seen the proof. But the words alone are enough to raise the question what if?

The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts
http://paranormal.about.com/od/ancientanom...ifact/index.htm

Now the spark plug thing has been around for a long time. the laqst I read about it they had rulled it out as a old spark plug in clay not a geode. And the people and the object are not around to question. So drop that one.

Extinct Llamas and Elephants - Village Pets

According to conventional theory, the camel family appeared on the scene in Eocene times, and then underwent rapid changes. By Oligocene times (26-38 million years ago) the feet were two-toed, the other three toes having completely disappeared. Also in the camel family are the llamas which have two toes, but at a very early stage of their evolution they had five (Colbert, 1955, p.386).

The Tiahuanacan empire in Bolivia predates the Incas. About 1920 an archaeologist was digging in the ruins of two coastal sites which belonged to this empire. Here he came upon pottery jugs with representations of llamas. The llamas had five toes, which seemed most strange, since by no stretch of the imagination could the Tiahuanacan civilization be made out to be that old. According to theory man evolved many millions of years after the last five-toed llama lived.



The mystery deepened when the same archaeologist discovered the skeletons of llamas at the sites, all with five toes (Honore, 1964, p.164-165).

http://paranormal.about.com/gi/dynamic/off...rg/ch05tud.html

There are many things that have been around for a long time, such as Heron's ball, which we could call the first steam engine in 1 A.D.
The Baghdad battery, which for some is the ultimate prove that there was some ancient high civilization. The point is that electrolysis was known already in Phoenician times (they used to gold plate bronze implements and sell them as gold. For electrolysis you need electricity).
I could recommend you a good German book (in German): Zahn, Joachim. Nichts Neues seit Babylon. Hamburg, Germany: Hoffmann und Kampe Verlag. 1979 that shows when and why many of our "modern achievements" were already invented Millenia ago.

The main reason that many of these things were forgotten is because they fell in disuse, or they were considered a novelty without a useful application. And that not only in ancient times. If you look at Leonardo da Vinci's drawings, the man invented machines that were re-discovered in industrial times because in his time there was no useful application such as the ball bearing, the worm thread, the changing gear shift, the diving suit.

And the same is true for the inventions of Heron of Alexandria or Ktsebios of Alexandria.

At all times there have been geniuses who could have advanced civilization if civilization would have been ready for them. And just because we think that something "advanced" must come from our time it could not be more wrong.

Not really, because if those skeletons were found by the old Peruvians they could identify them perfectly as Lamas, and that would explain the pottery. Another possible explanation is that the five toed Lama did not become extinct everywhere. The hooves forming in some species is mostly due to the environment they lived in. Could it be possible that somewhere in the Peruvian mountains there was no evolutionary need to change the form of the feet and five toes would be useful.

But without speculation, the resolution of the mystery probably will come when dating the bones with a scientific methods ... anything about that on the net?

questionmark wrote:


No problem, and in retrospect I apologize for droning on like that. LOL Who here really wants to read about the finer points of copyrighting?



Certainly this device (the Baghdad battery) was impressive for its time, and your point about electrolysis is well made. I don't know how "advanced" a civilization would be that would've invented the battery--considering it might have been capable, at best, of powering a small flashlight for a brief period of time. For the same reason I've never been terribly impressed by some people's theories that aliens built the pyramids. After all, why would a race capable of such advanced technology that enabled them to traverse the universe, come to earth to build with stones?

Which makes the application for electrolysis just more likely because you need relatively little energy to gold plate bronze.

It is not really complicated to build a battery if you understand acids and the reaction on metals. But more likely it was discovered by accident by someone who recognized what he saw.

The Baghdad battery I am not that twisted up over. However the things that have been reported as being found deep within the Earth. Nails in coal, Gold chains in coal, stuff that showed up that is man made but couldnt be because no one was around then. Perhaps man did make them and has been around much longer than people think or we are upon a recycled hunk of dirt.


Who knows it is one of those things we may never find all the answers to. In fact it all may be just a bunch of crap that got posted online. A few books have been posted about it but they all lack credibility more into speculation.

An besides being quoted in some obscure book we don't have any evidence. Just as well as they claim it happened I can it didn't.

Erich von Däniken (Swiss "Ufologist") once had wild claims of that type, and when it came to evidence he "almost" admitted that he had none and never seen these objects either. Same goes for the famous American Indian Library.

Sometimes I am tempted to use some missing links just because they fit so well into one theory or another. The problem is that if we put in a missing link we are at the verge of speculation. If we base our assumption on a missing link we are most certainly speculating.