Ancient History Revisited

We all know about the traditional view of early human history; we lived like primitive nomadic hunter-gatherers, always on the move with our food and the seasons and without any technology to speak of, until we started to settle in cities and city states as a consequence of the invention of agriculture. We started organizing in groups larger than the 50 - 100 people of the tribe, requiring us to communicate and make agreements on larger scales, which set us on the path of our cultural evolution that saw many cultures come and go, many empires rise and fall as well as a slow and bumpy path toward the use of science and logic as a means of defining the structure and rules of society, as opposed to religion and spirituality.

As you may already know, much of my strongly opinionated view on our current society is based firmly on that traditional scientific understanding of early human history. In many posts I place the beginning of the various forms of economical organization at around 10,000 - 12,000 years ago, in the neolithic era when we invented agriculture and started settling down. From the moment we started to produce more than we needed to feed all mouths, as soon as we started to produce surpluses, we divided society into two classes; the owners of the means of production who appropriate the lion's share of the surpluses, versus the rest of us who are dependent on the produced goods, food in those early days. No matter what economical organizations we thought of since, that basic division has been with us for the duration, up until today, and it doesn't matter if we call it slavery, feudalism, or indeed capitalism; it's always been that small group of owners, capitalists if you will, versus the rest of us.

But what if that early human history is dead wrong? Well, that might compel me to rethink some of my opinions. That's not something that comes naturally; it'll take some effort to convince me of an alternate view on this aspect of our history, and even then I'm as susceptible to cognitive biases and cognitive dissonance as the next person. But I'll have to try nonetheless, especially as evidence keeps accumulating that flies in the face of our traditional understanding of human evolution. And I do believe we must always have an open mind when it comes to the exploration of alternative ways to understand the evidence we're confronted with. I've already written quite often about aspects of our ancient history that are still shrouded in mystery, and evidence that implies our early ancestors had much greater intelligence and knowledge than we given them credit for. Just look at the giant ancient structures, built with stone blocks weighing in at several tons, sometimes even several hundreds of tons. And the precision with which these were built is nothing short of amazing; polygonally cut blocks fit together seamlessly and are still standing after more than 10,000 years...

More than 10,000 years; there's the first dent in our traditional view on human history. We just started to part ways with our nomadic tribal lifestyle as hunter-gatherers 10,000 years ago, did we not? Well, there's a whole lot more evidence that we were evolved much further along a lot earlier, not just the megalithic structures. To illustrate the continuing resistance against this alternative understanding of our history in the mainstream scientific community, I share with you today two videos. The first, linked above, is from Graham Hancock, who's not a scientist, but has been a pivotal figure in this slow awakening. That video is from 2016, just 4 years ago, and Hancock has been seen as a fringe figure in the mainstream scientific community for decades. His work on the theory that the pyramids of Gizeh, and especially the statue of the Sphinx, must have been built more than 11,000 - 12,000 years ago, was mainly ridiculed. Take note that there's a cautionary note from TEDx Talks, the popular platform on which this speech was published:

NOTE from TED: Please be aware that this talk contains outdated and counterfactual assertions, and should not be understood as a representation of modern scholarship on ancient civilizations.
_{source: YouTube}

The hostility toward this expressed alternative view on history is blatantly apparent here. Now, contrast that to the second video from 4 months ago, by another non-scientist, Roger G. Gilbertson. Gilbertson discusses different types of orbits around the globe and pays special attention to the one that follows an imaginary line across the globe along which many of our megalithic ancient structures reside by approximation. This video is accompanied by a cautionary note as well:

NOTE FROM TED: We've flagged this talk, which was filmed at a TEDx event, because it appears to fall outside the TEDx content guidelines. Claims made in this talk only represent the speaker’s personal views which are not corroborated by scientific evidence. TEDx events are independently organized by volunteers.
_{source: YouTube}

Wow, the mainstream resistance against new ideas only seems to have grown. From a friendly "please beware that..." to a flat out "we've flagged this talk [...] not corroborated by scientific evidence"... Well, at least it's reassuring to see that I'm not the only one that admits to the difficulties associated with possibly giving up on one of the pillars on which one's understanding of the world is built... But it's so sad to see such narrow-mindedness so prominently displayed on one of humanity's main current platforms on the medium that's supposed to facilitate the free and open exchange of ideas. I hope you enjoy the talks, dear reader, and that you give the expressed ideas and theories a fair chance with an open mind.

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