The main goal of this substack was to help the curious better understand Earth’s changing physical environment during the end of the last glacial period, and its impact on civilization. This final post however deals with a personal interest: is it likely that archeologists will find an older, even more advanced civilization than Göbekli Tepe?
Probably Quartz
I recently celebrated a milestone birthday and received a watch from my 3 daughters as a present. It was engraved with “Probably quartz” on the back, which humorously sums up - in three words or less - their upbringing. When they were young they would show me rocks they had found. They knew that Dad was weirdly obsessed with picking up and examining rocks, and could give the rocks a name and perhaps attach a value. When they showed me their discovered treasures I would act suitably impressed with a “Wow! That’s quartz! That’s very pretty!” remark. There’s nothing wrong with finding quartz. It can be very beautiful. It’s just very common. Finding it is equivalent to spotting a pigeon: high probability.
When one of them was nervous about going to kindergarten I gave her a “magic” quartz crystal, and told her that any time she felt nervous she should touch the crystal and her nervousness would go away. This went well for 3 days until some tiny thug stole the crystal from her desk. After a few days she confessed that the crystal was gone, but that fortunately her nervousness had disappeared too. She tried to let me down easy: ”Dad, I don’t think your crystal was magic”. It’s a proud day for any father when his little girl experimentally falsifies his scientific fraud.
As they grew up I eventually had to tell them the world is a much less interesting place than I had led them to believe: no Santa, no Easter Bunny, no Tooth Fairy, no wizard school at Hogwarts. But by then they had already learned - through experimentation - that most of the rocks they picked up were probably quartz.
People, their beliefs, and their scientific methods
Which brings me back to the foundational post, wherein someone queries me on the low-probability thesis that humankind had gone extinct, which to me sounded like a grownup asking me whether I existed or not. I weighed the presented evidence (none), estimated the probability that humankind did not go extinct (a conservative 99.99%), in order to pronounce the “Human Extinction” theory DOA. The same scientific method can be applied to identifying rocks: there’s a high probability any found rock is quartz, so if it looks like quartz it probably is. Note that true scientists like to hedge their bets with weasel words like “probably”.
When I was a student I was sent on a geological mapping expedition to the Anti-Atlas in Morocco, at the edge of the Sahara desert. I met many locals, mostly living in extremely remote, small and primitive villages, many of whom had never had much or any schooling. I became friends with one, who in a single conversation told me:
the little man in his radio had died
there was a lost city of gold out in the desert somewhere. If I found it we could go halfsies.
King Hassan II (king of Morocco at the time) was a CIA agent
When I claimed that men had walked on the moon he laughed so hard he almost peed his dishdash. We were basically entertaining each other with tales the other found outrageously improbable. None of these stories were in the slightest bit relevant to our day-to-day jobs of geological mapping and subsistence farming, so their entertainment value was more important than their factual accuracy. The scientist in me however wanted to educate him.
His village mainly survived through subsistence farming, and had more in common with the Natufians living at Abu Hureyra 10,000 years ago than with western civilization. Though I was still a student, I felt I had learned some tricks that might help him and his village become more “civilized”. I tried to convince him that putting the village toilet right next to the water well was probably a sanitation risk, but he was unfazed: it had always been there, and nobody ever got sick from drinking the water. Which was probably true until I showed up and experimentally falsified his theory the hard way. I shed 15 kg but gained some valuable lessons, one of which was: at the edge of the Sahara I was a fish out of water, an ignorant noob who would have trouble surviving without local help. I eventually bought him a pack of “little men” and showed him how to replace them, rather than regale him with hilarious stories on electricity.
The mother of all debates
Which brings me to the Joe Rogan podcast during which Graham Hancock and Flint Dibble each unsuccessfully tried to convince the other of their views on the probability of an advanced “early cycle” civilization. Some early posts highlighted the differences between entertainment, i.e. the pursuit of engaging and amusing an audience, and science, the pursuit of objective truths. There are many talented entertainers, and many talented scientists, but only a handful of entertaining scientists/scientific entertainers who can both successfully inform and amuse. Hancock and Dibble both made an excellent attempt.
Journalist/author Hancock presented his case for the existence of an “early cycle” civilization, one that was obliterated by a catastrophe, while archeologist Dibble presented rebuttal evidence. Each made valid points the other was loathe to concede. Hancock’s main, repeated argument is that only an estimated 5% of all archeological sites have been unearthed, and that large areas of the Sahara and South America have remained archeologically unexplored, so could plausibly contain evidence of an advanced “early cycle” civilization. Dibble’s main rebuttal was that with a total of ~1 million sites unearthed and over a billion artefacts recovered there is still no evidence of such a civilization, so Hancock’s theory is improbable. Both views could be true. I may be misjudging them, but Dibble seems like the kind of man who would also disappoint his kids by telling them the rocks they find are probably quartz, while Hancock would explore the possibility of them being some kind of Neolithic quartz tool. Both could be correct.
Science weighs in
So who’s right? Science doesn’t decide right and wrong, science deals with high-probability “truths” and low-probability “falsehoods”. Statistics can therefore nuance this debate, that is assign probabilities to their statements, as their main arguments boil down to a sample size problem: how many sites must be unearthed before Hancock’s claim becomes so improbable that it can be dismissed altogether. In other words: after unearthing 5% of the 20 million total sites, what is probability of archeologists in the future finding an advanced “early cycle” site under the assumption that there are only a small number, e.g. 200 (0.001 %), among the 19 million yet to be unearthed? There’s an equation for that, but there’s also a handy website, which indicates that after a million attempts the probability of finding an advanced “early cycle” civilization in the future has become vanishingly low, namely less than 1 in 20,000, i.e. odds that you wouldn’t want to risk the family fortune on.
So, it’s game over for Hancock, right?
Not so fast. Remember: with statistics you can prove anything given some faulty assumptions. The calculated probability assumes unbiased, “random” sampling, which is definitely not the case in archeology. Dibble presents some sites that were recently discovered using a method that determines where primitive societies would likely locate their dwellings under various assumptions, for example close to water, food, etc. Such a method would very likely have never found Göbekli Tepe - discovered by accident - which sits on a hilltop that is ~5 km from the nearest water source and was very likely remote to the main foraging areas. Its “advanced” builders evidently selected a site based on a set of advanced criteria, e.g. central location between the Taş Tepeler villages with an unobstructed view towards the paleodirection of Orion at summer solstice and close to limestone quarries.
So, it’s game over for Dibble, right?
Not so fast. It’s plausible that a hitherto undiscovered, advanced early cycle civilization living in an unexplored area, e.g. in the Amazon, was almost completely wiped-out by a severe catastrophe, e.g. the Late Pleistocene megafaunal extinction. But the probability of finding such a site is highly dependant on what is meant by “early”, “advanced” and “catastrophe”. If Dibble raises his expectations and Hancock lowers his, then the probability of finding such a site would increase. I would - perhaps naively - think they could both agree that finding a Göbekli Tepe-like ~13 ka civilization in the Amazon or the Sahara has a reasonable probability of success. I’d start by looking at hilltops - astronomy seems to have fascinated early civilizations - that have a clear unobstructed view to the direction of their favorite constellations, e.g. Orion in the Northern Hemisphere at summer solstice, on limestone hills.
Göbekli Tepe? Meh!
The Taş Tepelers - to me - meet all the criteria for an advanced “early cycle” civlization: they demonstrably had sufficient leisure time to devote to such cultural activities as building a beautifully-decorated monument complex at Göbekli Tepe. And their civilization bears some interesting similarities with the Ancient Egyptians, including their sacred practices and building technologies, which suggests some of their knowledge may have been passed on to future civilizations. It’s not unreasonable to suggest they passed on some of their crop cultivation, animal husbandry and building skills to the Abu Hureyra 2 Natufians. For example, early wheat - einkorn - was first demonstrably cultivated around 10.6 ka, i.e. during the first early Holocene “colder, dryer” period, at Çayönü and Cafer Höyük, in areas to the north of Göbekli Tepe.
In the video above Hancock regretfully admits there’s no tangible evidence of an advanced “early cycle” civilization, just teases and hints. It’s somewhat baffling that he apparently doesn’t think the Taş Tepeler society that built Karahan Tepe and Göbekli Tepe ticks all his boxes. Some reasons could be:
Not “early” enough.
Not “catastrophic” enough: a slow societal regression due to climate change is not as entertaining as a cosmic impact
Not “advanced” enough, i.e. no writing, metalworking, flying cars, etc., and only dabbling in agriculture.
Unfortunate timing. Hancock published his first “Lost Civilization” book, Fingerprints of the Gods, in 1995, around the time Klaus Schmidt was starting his initial Göbekli Tepe excavations: something bigger was required.
Possible “not early enough” bias
This bias seems to mainly be due to Hancock’s preference for an early cycle civilization that was destroyed by the imaginary Younger Dryas (YD) cosmic impact, i.e. one that thrived before, but was destroyed around, 12.85 ka. Karahan Tepe was very likely founded around or before 13 ka, during the Bølling-Allerød, so therefore should qualify as “early cycle” in this regard. However a previous post demonstrated there’s no credible evidence that a YD cosmic impact occurred at Abu Hureyra and even if one did it evidently didn’t destroy or disrupt Karahan Tepe. Archeologists have determined that most of the sites presented in Hancock’s Netflix series post-date the YD, and were evidently not destroyed by a catastrophe. Only one site - Gunung Padang - has an accurately dated, unexcavated layer that pre-dates the Holocene (11.7 ka - present), though whether this layer contains evidence of an advanced civilization is still contentious. The further back one goes back in time before 13 ka, the lower the probability of finding a civilization than was more advanced than the Taş Tepelers, as most or all of humankind was almost certainly struggling to survive the colder, dryer Last Glacial Period that had been occurring for ~100,000 years, and would therefore have insufficient leisure time to devote to “arts, science, etc.”.
Possible “not sufficiently catastrophic” bias
A catastrophe is a highly entertaining and completely unnecessary requirement to have. Hancock’s main points are that a) an advanced, “early cycle” civilization existed and b) that it collapsed following c) a great catastrophe. The probability of a) is 100%: Taş Tepelers and Karahan Tepe. The probability of b) is also 100%: Göbekli Tepe’s demise was very likely due to climate change. The probability of c) can be estimated from the historical record. A recent study of 168 societal “crisis events” indicates none of the historical “advanced” societies was suddenly terminated by a violent catastrophe, such as an earthquake, flood or meteor impact, and only ~12% died from the only natural catastrophe on the list, epidemics. Most collapsed do to “ageing”, i.e. their societies stopped functioning after a while due to internal strife. There’s too little leisure time when a society must revert to surviving, but when there’s too much leisure time a society moves on to internal squabbling. The empirically-determined probability of c), and as a result Hancock’s theory through its inclusion, lowers the overall probability by 88%.
The “catastrophe” requirement presents a Catch-22: if an advanced civilization was obliterated by a catastrophe we may never find any evidence of it. Alternatively, If Gunung Padang does prove to date back to pre-YD time then it likely doesn’t tick all the boxes either, as the proponents of the low-probability YD cosmic impact (so far) don’t believe it fictively hit anywhere near there.
Civilization happens to societies who help themselves
Upon reflection, the observed improbability of a civilization ending by catastrophe is self-evident. Imagine some members of an “early cycle” civilization suffer a catastrophe similar to the Vesuvius eruption that destroyed Pompeii or the 2004 tsunami that devastated Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia. Advanced civilizations could - and did - rapidly recover from such (minor) catastrophes: the other members help the afflicted members recover from the disaster.
If a major natural catastrophe happened over a longer period, such as the change to a colder, dryer climate or a gradual increase in space radiation, the advanced civilization would likely slowly regress - its society would implode - in the manner of Göbekli Tepe, to a hunter-collector or agricultural life-style, as most inhabitants shift their energies from “arts, science, etc.” to survival, that is ensuring their families have enough to eat. A truly advanced civilization could plausibly adapt and survive, but that’s not what Hancock’s looking for.
A sudden, major catastrophe that causes the complete societal collapse of an advanced civilization would likely result in the few remaining survivors immediately reverting to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Remember all those preppers and newbie hunters during the - relatively minor - Covid catastrophe? The idea that a handful of survivors would roam the Earth educating locals is highly improbable, as most catastrophe survivors would likely have highly-specialized, “advanced” skills, and therefore wouldn’t have a clue on how to effectively work metal or cultivate crops (I don’t). Historically, advanced civilization’s main “gift” to more primitive societies has been to give them new communicable diseases, such as small pox, or to take them away as slaves.
Ancient hunter-collector societies would likely have been experimenting and dabbling in farming and other subsistence survival technologies for hundreds of years. My Moroccan friend would therefore be teaching me survival tricks following the collapse of western civilization, and not vice versa.
The “not sufficiently advanced” bias
No “advanced” criteria are mentioned by Hancock, and the candidates he presents (e.g. the “Bimini Road”) seem to largely consist of megalithic slabs that even if they are human-made don’t measure up to their counterparts at Göbekli Tepe. How much more “advanced” does an early cycle cilivization need to be? It also seems an idée fixe with archeologists that all advanced civilizations had mastered agriculture. Why? Would there be any incentive to work long farmer hours every day when there’s a surplus of food waiting to be hunted and collected?
An extensive study of science fiction pulp literature during my formative years reveals the entertainment industry’s “advanced civilization” criteria mainly consist of:
Scantily-dressed, smoking-hot women
The compulsory wearing of onesie uniforms by all males engaged in fighting aliens.
Flying cars
Hancock and Dibble would hopefully edit my empirical list, but it’s unlikely they could ever agree on the criteria defining “advanced”, other than “we’ll know it when we see it”. Both agree there’s as yet no evidence of such a civilization passing on their secrets to the Natufians or the Taş Tepelers.
If they do find evidence of an advanced society of Atlantians who were whizzing around in their flying cars while the rest of humanity struggled to survive ice-age conditions long enough to procreate, would we care? Personally, I’d rather not learn about a stuck-up society that was too snooty to help their fellow man when life was easy, but went bumming for Natufian beers after the meteor hit. I’d rather discover more about my deepest civilization roots that were very likely in Turkey or the Fertile Crescent.
It’s almost certain that the Natufians and the Taş Tepelers figured out such “advanced” technologies as food storage, crop cultivation and animal husbandry for themselves. If a 5 year old can figure out a crystal is not magic then the adults in primitive societies would almost certainly have been able to figure out how plants and animals reproduce and grow, and how and when food is apt to spoil. Their lives literally depended on it.
It’s probably quartz
It’s fun to swap tall tales with friends, or to go to an event to be entertained and amused. Personally, I might (depends, though) enjoy living in a world with non-terrestrials, the chupacabra, the Nephelim, a Lost city of Gold, and a cultural heritage dating back to an ancient, advanced “early cycle” civilization, preferably with flying cars. But a geologist writing a substack devoted to irreverent views on the woo-woo has the unpleasant duty to inform everyone that the Carolina Bays and the Great Lakes were almost certainly not formed by a meteorite impact, those “mega-ripples” to the north of the Richat Structure are not evidence of a flood but are wind-blown sand dunes, Noah’s Ark isn’t, humans almost certainly did not cause the Late Pleistocene climate change or mass extinctions, and there’s - unfortunately - a low probability of finding a more advanced and older “early cycle” civilization that was destroyed by a catastrophe. And that the rock you would like to throw at me for bursting your bubble is probably quartz.