In a month’s time, Graham Hancock will release his new book, America Before, which attempts to document what he claims to be evidence for a lost civilization that was destroyed when a comet collided with North America at the start of the Younger Dryas period about 12,900 years ago and triggered horrific wildfires that burned much of the continent. Skeptic magazine has commissioned me to review the book, and my review will be published when the book is released in the United States in April. But in the meantime, Hancock tweeted what he said was supporting evidence that his comet holocaust killed off the megafauna of Ice Age America:
The article Hancock cites describes the discovery of a trove of Ice Age mammal fossils in excavations being done in Los Angeles for a new branch of the city’s subway. One set of sloth bones was found alongside pieces of charcoal, which investigators suggest represented the remains of a wildfire that caused the mudslide that killed an buried the animals. Their analysis, however, does not support the claim that this wildfire was the world-ending apocalypse envisioned by Younger Dryas comet impact believers, even though the fossils date to 12,900 years ago, the same time frame as the alleged impact:
John Harris, who leads Cogstone’s laboratory work identifying fossils, said in an interview that partial sloth skeleton was discovered in sediments that contained fragments of charcoal, indicating the beast was preserved in a mudslide that likely resulted from an ancient wildfire.
There is, of course, no evidence to link the particular wildfire described here to the supposed Younger Dryas comet-induced fires that allegedly burned over the whole globe. I’ll note, though, that the fragments of charcoal don’t match the “carbon-rich black layer” of iridium, charcoal, soot, carbon, and nanodiamonds that Younger Dryas comet researchers claim represents the remains of these global wildfires. They also claimed that the bones of megafauna were not found in the soot layer, unlike the sloth found mixed up with mud and charcoal. “The in situ bones of extinct Pleistocene megafauna, along with Clovis tool assemblages, occur below this black layer but not within or above it,” R. B. Firestone et al. wrote in 2007.
By coincidence, the current issue of Skeptical Inquirer contains and article challenging the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis that addresses the issue of the conflagration. Impact physicist Mark Boslough wrote that “the swarm-of-descending-fireballs idea was based on a less-than-accurate TV documentary animation of a simulation I had done to test an idea that I had long since rejected.” He takes issue with a number of comet impact claims, but regardless of whether a comet hit, the existence (or non-existence) of the comet implies nothing about the existence of Atlantis any more than it would unicorns or leprechauns. It remains a point of astonishment that the bones of megafauna that supposedly died in the comet strike turn up with regularity, but every human being and all of the buildings, tools, and material possessions of the lost Atlantis-like civilization were blasted clean off the face of the Earth, without a single trace remaining. I have trouble imagining that a sloth can manage to have its bones preserved for all time, but not a single outpost of Atlantis had even a single bolt or screw remain.
57 Comments
Simple
3/7/2019 09:07:33 am
Atlantis is under the waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
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Joe Scales
3/8/2019 10:22:50 am
Yeah, I'm usually out at "Atlantis", but had to salute this one. Genuinely funny.
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Hanslune
3/7/2019 10:10:27 am
Simples
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Naughtius
3/7/2019 11:18:43 am
So was this comet before or after the Sphinx was built, should itn ave wiped out monuments that people like Hancock claim are much older that mainstream beliefs?
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David Evans
3/7/2019 01:21:56 pm
Hancock dated the Sphinx to 8,000 BC, much younger than the Younger Dryas.
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PROSPERO45
3/8/2019 07:49:49 am
As hancock appears to have no scientific training of any kind, how is he qualified to date the Sphinx ?
David Evans
3/8/2019 09:07:14 am
Prospero45, Hancock is a journalist, which means he gets his scientific knowledge mainly from other people. His estimates of the age of the Sphinx lean heavily on the ideas of Robert Schoch, who has postgraduate degrees in geology and geophysics. Schoch concluded that the Sphinx is much older than commonly thought by looking at the extent of what he thought was rain erosion on the monument.
PROSPERO45
3/9/2019 01:59:42 pm
I don't know that Schoch is a much more reliable source than Hancock these days, despite his qualifications. You would be more likely to find him in Egypt running guided tours at $6900 a go (flights not included) than to find him giving lectures in Boston.
David Evans
3/9/2019 02:15:36 pm
I agree, qualifications are no guarantee against being wrong. I was replying to what I thought was your implication that Hancock's views are negligible because he himself isn't qualified in the field.
PROSPERO45
3/9/2019 04:51:43 pm
Having read some of hancocks work, I find it hard to believe he does not consider himself to be somewhat more than an amateur in these matters. His readers, who appear to be emotional types, seem to have afforded him something approaching 'Guru' status, something he makes no effort to discourage.
Accumulated Wisdom
3/9/2019 07:37:05 pm
Schoch's "Voyages of the Pyramid Builders" was decent for speculation.
Machala
3/7/2019 11:57:43 am
As been stated often before, by a multitude of intelligent people..." Graham Hancock is an idiot ! " ( My apologies to all the other idiots out there. )
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The other idiots out there
3/7/2019 12:59:55 pm
Apology accepted.
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Hanslune
3/7/2019 01:01:16 pm
I would agree in part but he is mostly a clever man - and believer - who has made millions writing books targeted AT idiots
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Riley V
3/7/2019 03:32:32 pm
I look forward to the review. I don’t look forward to Hancock’s complaints about your review.
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Hanslune
3/7/2019 04:50:38 pm
You Heretic!
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Kent
3/7/2019 06:15:39 pm
Fortunately wildfires in California are a thing of the past!
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Accumulated Wisdom
3/7/2019 11:33:51 pm
This debate has evolved over my lifetime. Last, I was aware, the claim was an icesheet impact. I am happy more people are talking about it. When, I brought this up in my second grade school class, Mrs. B. said, "What?...Are you retarded?...Rocks DON'T fall from the sky!"
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Kent
3/8/2019 12:08:09 am
@ Five Books: I could well believe you were in 2nd grade in 2006 when the hypothesis was first published.
Kent
3/8/2019 01:15:49 am
Finding that it was published by Crackpot puts things in a whole new light.
Accumulated Wisdom
3/8/2019 02:25:48 am
This was considered "crackpot". Was reading about "speculation" of an asteroid killing the dinosaurs. Some of the Fringe literature of the time, began speculating about an impact event taking out the Mammoth, and Clovis Culture. I know Clovis wasn't a culture, but, it's what people said at the time. This didn't hit the mainstream until later.
Kent
3/8/2019 04:11:25 am
"Some of the Fringe literature of the time, began speculating about an impact event taking out the Mammoth"
Accumulated Wisdom
3/8/2019 02:24:06 pm
Obviously, I do not recall every book of Woo, or author of the Woo. Seems like every book on UFOs was by, Daniel Cohen. Charles Berlitz wrote about a wide range of Woo. A few of the old "Woo" ideas have since gone mainstream. Giants went from anomalies to somehow proving the validity of Astronomy Cults.
David Evans
3/8/2019 02:51:19 pm
I think the concept of mankind's collective amnesia was originated by Immanuel Velikovsky in <i>Worlds in Collision</i> (1950). I remember being quite impressed by it as a teenager, until I learned enough physics to see that what he described was totally impossible.
Accumulated Wisdom
3/8/2019 04:00:42 pm
David Evans,
David Evans
3/8/2019 04:14:21 pm
There's a free download of Worlds in Collision here
Accumulated Wisdom
3/8/2019 04:35:05 pm
David Evans,
Kent
3/8/2019 06:59:12 pm
It's vastly entertaining that your first move is to preemptively come up with an excuse Five Books. Can you scrape together ten dollars?
Kent
3/8/2019 09:32:17 pm
@Five Books "Was reading about "speculation" of an asteroid killing the dinosaurs. "
Accumulated Wisdom
3/8/2019 11:36:53 pm
You are correct. I was in the 2nd Grade. My Grandfather had been diagnosed with cancer, and I was spending a lot of time in hospital waiting rooms, and the Public Library.
Kent
3/9/2019 01:47:24 am
I ask very few questions. I simply point out your unbelievable accounts of things and try to line them up with the chronology of actual events. Not to mention your bizarre approach to enhancing images using telephones. Your posts on Wolter's blog are a treasure trove of non-sense I choose not to write about here.
Accumulated Wisdom
3/9/2019 08:02:33 pm
First, not all books are "War and Peace". It's not difficult to read multiple books of 160 pages, or less in a day. Second, when you're taller than 99% of most adults at age 6, one tends to stay away from the public. Reading was my escape, and the only way to learn outside the classroom.
Kent
3/9/2019 08:29:05 pm
You're piling things-that-are-hard-to-believe on top of things-that-are-hard-to-believe. So you were 5 feet tall at age 6? Sounds like a lie to me.
Doc Rock
3/9/2019 09:30:20 pm
I
Doc Rock
3/9/2019 09:38:43 pm
I think that there have been five year olds as tall as 5'7" reported recently and an 8 year old well in excess of six feet. Might have been the same kid.
Kent
3/10/2019 05:04:44 am
Oh, certainly possible, but do the Venn Diagram of "super-tall at age 6 & reads 2 to 5 books a day every day for 42 years". Keep in mind that the claim starts at age 3.
Your Grandfather's Victim
3/10/2019 05:56:15 am
If your grandfather is who I think he was he raped me.
Doc Rock
3/10/2019 04:34:22 pm
Kent,
Accumulated Wisdom
3/10/2019 05:14:23 pm
Been cooking for myself since the age of 6. I was tall enough to reach the stove. Speaking multiple languages, yes. Writing...No.
Accumulated Wisdom
3/10/2019 05:19:41 pm
"Mi hao"
Kent
3/10/2019 08:59:42 pm
看起來好像你抬起幾句話然後拼錯了。他媽的你媽媽。
Hanslune
3/8/2019 12:15:10 am
Yeah I remember the book - still have it in fact - the color photos in the middle fell out! I also remember the problems with Allen West and the back and forth since then on the value and interpretation of the evidence.
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Hanslune
3/8/2019 04:17:04 pm
http://www.everythingselectric.com/product/worlds-in-collision-free/
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Accumulated Wisdom
3/9/2019 03:15:15 pm
Free Woo in exchange for headache of spam?
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E.P. Grondine
3/9/2019 11:12:22 am
Well, Jason -
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David Evans
3/9/2019 01:00:39 pm
Point 1: cosmologists do not concern themselves with cometary impacts. That you think they do suggests a certain ignorance
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E.P.. Grondine
3/11/2019 12:34:48 pm
Hi David -
David Evans
3/11/2019 01:04:13 pm
E. P. Grondine:
Accumulated Wisdom
3/11/2019 04:26:34 pm
When the next "POS" hits the Earth, I think it will be like the past. After the impact, Natural Selection will occur for a period of time. People will come together in small groups for common defense. Eventually, the elite groups will emerge from underground cities, and mountain bunkers. Whomever, holds the keys to the International Seed Bank, will have absolute power. Unless, you think these underground complexes, and Mountain bunkers were truly built for nuclear fallout.
David Evans
3/11/2019 05:02:28 pm
Accumulated wisdom, how far in the future do you think the next big impact will be? Because from the way NASA is already tracking asteroids I think it's unlikely to be in the next 100 years. And I don't see any evidence of a controlling elite that thinks that far ahead. If there were one, it would have done something about climate change before now.
Accumulated Wisdom
3/11/2019 09:48:48 pm
Aren't we supposed to worry about 2027? Has something changed I'm unaware of?
David Evans
3/12/2019 06:13:09 am
The only 2027 impact I can find is a hypothetical scenario (i.e. not real) from NASA. It says EXERCISE in red on every page so people won't get confused
E.P. Grondine
3/13/2019 03:19:51 pm
David:
Accumulated Wisdom
3/13/2019 07:51:49 pm
I am unsure how well "Exodus to Arthur" holds up. The date given for the Thera Event of 1637BCE plus, or minus 5 years seems to hold true.
Kent
3/9/2019 07:17:24 pm
I know this is not my website but I'm not comfortable with that sort of language.
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Bob
3/10/2019 05:17:54 pm
Kent, you sound like a faggot.
Jim
3/9/2019 08:23:26 pm
Don't mind E.P. , he got hit on the head with an apple.
Reply
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