Originally posted by JohnPhoenix
The only things we have that lasted the longest are made of stone or rock and yet these too do crumble.

i believe it is entirely possible there are some coverups in this field.. the field is so large, there has to be some things that are hidden

You know what they say..."Love is fleeting, but stone tools are forever". Archaeology is about more than 'things', and changes in the landscape are detectable without 'things'. You can learn a lot from a different coloured patch of soil, for instance. Sure, there are things that are hidden, but it's not a good idea to build a chronology of the earth on faith, wishes, and the internet.

Originally posted by R3KR
I like this stuff too.
Amazing what we dont know is right!
Amazing what we havent found yet!

About the history... we cant even get history right with computers and technology, I mean the simple fact of what our president "Lincoln" was and what the civil war was fought over, those are lost in just a few centuries!

We have a fair idea of what the Greeks were up to around 450 BC for the Greco-Persian Wars. Due in part to Herodotus who started up that history thing - and the documents surviving til now.

Another point

If you drive a wooden stake into the ground and let it rot away and the ground is not disturbed you will see the outline of that stake for hundreds of millions of years. The earliest signs we have have trees is from their roots back to around 385 million years. The point being is that if you mess with structure of the soil it 'retains' this for a very long time and pretty much until it is subducted

Originally posted by Hanslune
The point being is that if you mess with structure of the soil it 'retains' this for a very long time and pretty much until it is subducted

Unless, of course, some knucklehead gets in there first with a metal detector or goes pothunting.

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck
Secondly, the fact that new discoveries continue to change the story as we know it refutes the allegations of academic cover-up.

That's true however.

{I'm not defending the threads premise} But that sentence made me think.
We have seen how there may not be an honest "Cover-up" but often a defense {sometimes bitterly} in certain Academic circles of a presently accepted theory then just to have it tossed out and replaced with another theory that may have been rebuked just a short time previously because of the lack of or formerly disputed "Evidence"

So I think this process by "Some" not all but some give the impression that there is indeed some sort of cover up at times.

Originally posted by SLAYER69

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck
Secondly, the fact that new discoveries continue to change the story as we know it refutes the allegations of academic cover-up.

That's true however.
{I'm not defending the threads premise} But that sentence made me think.
We have seen how there may not be an honest "Cover-up" but often a defense {sometimes bitterly} in certain Academic circles of a presently accepted theory then just to have it tossed out and replaced with another theory that may have been rebuked just a short time previously because of the lack of or formerly disputed "Evidence"

So I think this process by "Some" not all but some give the impression that there is indeed some sort of cover up at times.

Indeed...and the best example I an produce is the story of the peopling of the Americas, which has changed dramatically in the last decade or so and continues to evolve as new evidence is unearthed (if I may use the phrase).

On the other hand...it's not the academics that are still declaring that Columbus 'discovered' America (first European, of course).

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck

Originally posted by Hanslune
The point being is that if you mess with structure of the soil it 'retains' this for a very long time and pretty much until it is subducted

Unless, of course, some knucklehead gets in there first with a metal detector or goes pothunting.

Ahhmmm yes those swine do tend to mess things up and nothing annoys an archaeologist more than a disturbed stratigraphy. I once directed a dig at a possible bronze age site due to a promising sighting of bronze age pottery on the surface of a mound - a few days later we had the answer from a test pit. The items had been dug out of a trench made for a siege in the 16th century - so instead of of 4,500 BP we were looking for we found a trench system from 450 BP years ago - dang. worse yet the 'mound' was had been built up to support artillery in the siege and soil had been brought from all over - at the bottom of the test pit we found a bottle of perfume from Venice that was popular in the 1600's.....above it was stuff from the neolithic, bronze age, classical period, Venetian, Islamic, Ottoman, British and finally the Turkish invasion a few decades ago.

Originally posted by Hanslune

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck

Originally posted by Hanslune
The point being is that if you mess with structure of the soil it 'retains' this for a very long time and pretty much until it is subducted

Unless, of course, some knucklehead gets in there first with a metal detector or goes pothunting.

Ahhmmm yes those swine do tend to mess things up and nothing annoys an archaeologist more than a disturbed stratigraphy.

I hear ya. I was recently handed a box of artifacts that I was assured 'came from one of two sites', which contained both a paleo point and a mammoth tooth. Would have been nice to know if there was any association.

Originally posted by SLAYER69

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck
Secondly, the fact that new discoveries continue to change the story as we know it refutes the allegations of academic cover-up.

That's true however.

{I'm not defending the threads premise} But that sentence made me think.
We have seen how there may not be an honest "Cover-up" but often a defense {sometimes bitterly} in certain Academic circles of a presently accepted theory then just to have it tossed out and replaced with another theory that may have been rebuked just a short time previously because of the lack of or formerly disputed "Evidence"

So I think this process by "Some" not all but some give the impression that there is indeed some sort of cover up at times.

edit on 12-9-2011 by SLAYER69 because: (no reason given)

A good example of this was the strong debate from the 1880s to 1960 about whether the Norse sagas actually portrayed a Norwegian 'discovery' of the Americas. Looking back at it I'd say the consensus was that it did but no physical evidence supported the conclusion (the line of reasoning was that the sagas were substantially correct about Iceland and Greenland, therefore they were correct about Markland and Vinland). I'd said that 5% didn't believe the Norwegians had gotten here, 25% were neutral and 70% believed they had. All of this changed with the discovery of L'anse aux Meadows. when it shifted to 99.9% in support of the Norwegians getting to the Americas first. The .1% was rather dramatic however.