Hi everyone! New fan here. I've watched Ancient Apocalypse on Netflix at least 5 times through now, and I am absolutely smitten with Hancock's ideas, and I think they are all plausible enough to merit deeper investigation.
A recurring item that was mentioned both in the show and in the Joe Rogan Experience #2051 in which Hancock appears as a guest, is the question of where the evidence is of the buildup of skills from hunter-gatherer groups to experienced artisans creating structures with megaliths.
I did try to search the forums here, but I'm unfamiliar with the functioning as I've never used a message board before, so I apologize if this topic has already been posted before.
Could an ice age culture have learned how to move, lift, balance, carve, and otherwise build with megaliths by first using blocks of ice?
Ice would be a more forgiving material to work with, and a fair bit lighter of course, but once you figure out the right leverage for moving a large block of ice, it's really only a matter of scale to figure out how to do the same with stone.
Had Ice Age peoples learned first with ice, it would likely leave next to no evidence of their buildup of skills.
I also don't think it's unreasonable to think that blocks which were carved incorrectly or where the engraving didn't turn out right the first time may have simply been cut down to use for other parts of the project. Why should we assume the Vulture Stone for example was carved exactly right on the first attempt?
The artisans may have made multiple attempts at creating the images on the stone, and used "discard" blocks elsewhere either within the same construction or in another building.
The reason I say this is that I enjoy sewing, crocheting, painting, drawing, and other creative pursuits, but it often takes me several attempts to make something look the way I want. With sewing and crocheting in particular, the "wasted" material is not really wasted, but repurposed into another part of the project or another project down the road. I think this principal of reusing "waste" materials could be another plausible explanation for a lack of evidence for a buildup of skills with stoneworking. Why leave a heap of trash next to your temple or observatory? Better to incorporate the waste blocks into the structure elsewhere than waste all the work it took to get them to the site in the first place.
A recurring item that was mentioned both in the show and in the Joe Rogan Experience #2051 in which Hancock appears as a guest, is the question of where the evidence is of the buildup of skills from hunter-gatherer groups to experienced artisans creating structures with megaliths.
I did try to search the forums here, but I'm unfamiliar with the functioning as I've never used a message board before, so I apologize if this topic has already been posted before.
Could an ice age culture have learned how to move, lift, balance, carve, and otherwise build with megaliths by first using blocks of ice?
Ice would be a more forgiving material to work with, and a fair bit lighter of course, but once you figure out the right leverage for moving a large block of ice, it's really only a matter of scale to figure out how to do the same with stone.
Had Ice Age peoples learned first with ice, it would likely leave next to no evidence of their buildup of skills.
I also don't think it's unreasonable to think that blocks which were carved incorrectly or where the engraving didn't turn out right the first time may have simply been cut down to use for other parts of the project. Why should we assume the Vulture Stone for example was carved exactly right on the first attempt?
The artisans may have made multiple attempts at creating the images on the stone, and used "discard" blocks elsewhere either within the same construction or in another building.
The reason I say this is that I enjoy sewing, crocheting, painting, drawing, and other creative pursuits, but it often takes me several attempts to make something look the way I want. With sewing and crocheting in particular, the "wasted" material is not really wasted, but repurposed into another part of the project or another project down the road. I think this principal of reusing "waste" materials could be another plausible explanation for a lack of evidence for a buildup of skills with stoneworking. Why leave a heap of trash next to your temple or observatory? Better to incorporate the waste blocks into the structure elsewhere than waste all the work it took to get them to the site in the first place.