I am fascinated by our ancient origins. My background is in Science and industry, but if you are reading this on my blog, you probably already know that my focus these days is Science Fiction. Good Sci-Fic is a mix of fact, gentle extrapolation, and fantastic speculation! So, staying true, I am thrilled to have an excuse to let my mind wander onto paths more fringe than a realscientist would be comfortable with, but I am still forced by the ‘Hard-Sci-Fi Hippocratic Oathto stay more grounded than a tie-died, new-age crystal-healer!
Science has come a long way in the past few decades, but one of the areas that seems to be stuck in the past is archeology (sorry). Many tweed-jacketed academics seem incapable of updating their worldviews based on the mass of new evidence pouring in: from DNA to luminescence dating; from ground penetrating radar to muon tomography.
Luckily, YouTube has given a platform to a bunch of amateur scientists (and in some cases tenured professors who expose heretical non-orthodox opinions). I started down this rabbit hole a few years ago in research for a new book, and am still deep down in the dark, but there is a glow…
If you like mysteries and bold ideas take a look at Martin Sweatman’s channel:
These people were trying to leave a message for their descendants! that’s Us!
…will we listen?
On a slight tangent: a similar challenge: how do we write something that will have meaning in 100K years?
Perhaps contemporary thinking on this similar problem might help us get deeper into the heads of our ancient ancestors…
I think we have to be very careful when weighing up evidence presented by ‘a bunch of amateur scientists (and in some cases tenured professors who expose heretical non-orthodox opinions)’ on YouTube. Archeologists are scientists and they don’t all wear tweed jackets. Martin Sweatman had been widely criticized for ignoring much of the published data from Gobekli Teke and for cherry picking evidence in order to support his thesis. It may be not so much fun, but science must be held to much higher standards than fiction. Always.
I didn’t know he had been criticised as a Scientist.
I must say I did find his 2 part literature review on the Younger Dryas controversy highly compelling (Sorry Mystery History pun).
Do you have a link for his critics?