If there really had been an ancient super-advanced culture ..........

Here's a really good article on natural reactors. It's about one in Gabon in Africa, but it could apply to others.

www.scientificamerican.com...


Basically, natural Uranium always is always composed of 0.720 % U-235. This number goes down gradually over time, because it slowly decays. So like a billion years ago it was higher. And a billion years later than now , it will be lower.

You need a bare minimum of 1% to get a reaction going.

This means in the super distant past, it was possible for reactors to happen naturally. But in any part of the near past, the uranium would certainly need to be refined first.


So in order for an ancient culture to have carried out a nuclear reaction, there would need to be evidence that they had refined it first.

For that to happen, they would need to have figured out that refining it makes a difference. It's not the sort of thing you discover by accident. Way too much work involved. Nobody would do that much work unless they already had a working hypothesis that predicted the outcome ahead of time.


But if those things are present, the reactor itself isn't really in question. Designing a good reactor requires modern style knowledge, but you could build a crumby one using ancient tools.

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous


It's not that difficult. Virtually all artifacts that get found from prehistory are either in areas that became desert, tundra, peat in the bottom of a marsh, or in caves underground. (Basically places that microbes can't get to in high enough quantities.)

They can an are found in jungles and bogs and even under the sea. Stone and disturbances of the soil is not affected by microbes, nor is accumulation of sedimentation nor ice cores.

Only if we assume that they had a large population.

But with mastodons around for food, and no particular need for a favorable young-to-old ratio, why would they do that to themselves?

Why not keep their numbers small, and enjoy life?

Lots of HG groups did so until just recently and a few continue but such small groups historically don't develop high technology as they lack the specialization to do so.

originally posted by: scraedtosleep

It looks like the megalith builders were far ahead of us when it comes to masonry.

In the end they worked with only raw stone no matter how big. The Coral Castle was built by one man with no modern tools, so what could 10,000 do with a lifetime devoted to do it? Just because you and I scratch our heads in wonder doesn't mean they used a single advance method outside of very primitive skill sets using a lot of people with a lot of time.

It is hard for us to repeat today because we cannot find 1000 people willing to devote 30 years non-stop to a task...lol

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous

originally posted by: Raggedyman

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous

originally posted by: ElGoobero
one theory is that there is a fair amount of evidence of this antediluvian civilization but it's dumped in museums or the Lost Ark warehouse forgotten and never properly interpreted.

suppose it was based in Antarctica before continental drift. no telling whats under all that ice.

Antarctica might be a good place for a high tech society to set up shop.

Heat engines give the best Carnot efficiency when the difference between the hot and cold parts of the engine are the furthest apart in temperature.

So it's almost paradoxical, but Antarctica would be a very good place to power a factory off of heat engines.

before Continental Drift Antarctica had a temperate climate

one theory is that this was only 10-12k in the past and a Velikovsky (or similar event) might have changed our axis

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous


Antarctica might be a good place for a high tech society to set up shop.

Heat engines give the best Carnot efficiency when the difference between the hot and cold parts of the engine are the furthest apart in temperature.

So it's almost paradoxical, but Antarctica would be a very good place to power a factory off of heat engines.

Antarctica had a temperate climate at one time.
obviously this was long long long ago.

one theory is that a Velikovsky (or similar) event happened and changed Earth's axis.

can you imagine the horror of living, say, in the Carolinas, and an event happens and you wake up to Arctic weather?

originally posted by: ElGoobero

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous


Antarctica might be a good place for a high tech society to set up shop.

Heat engines give the best Carnot efficiency when the difference between the hot and cold parts of the engine are the furthest apart in temperature.

So it's almost paradoxical, but Antarctica would be a very good place to power a factory off of heat engines.

Antarctica had a temperate climate at one time.
obviously this was long long long ago.

one theory is that a Velikovsky (or similar) event happened and changed Earth's axis.

can you imagine the horror of living, say, in the Carolinas, and an event happens and you wake up to Arctic weather?

www.smithsonianmag.com...

a reply to: ElGoobero
Slow tectonic migration south when Pangea broke up.

Still moving today - northwest.

Harte

If advanced civilization previously existed on earth we would likely see the remains of some of their technology in geostationary orbit. Without any remains in space its likely that previous cultures achieved a certain point before environment turned ugly.

originally posted by: ElGoobero


Antarctica had a temperate climate at one time.

Aye, there were tropical rainforests there once. About 90 million years ago ......

The last time it had a climate much warmer than today's was around the mid Pliocene ~4 million years ago - although even then most of East Antarctica was covered by an ice sheet. So we're talking something similar maybe to Greenland today.

originally posted by: Xtrozero

originally posted by: scraedtosleep

It looks like the megalith builders were far ahead of us when it comes to masonry.

In the end they worked with only raw stone no matter how big. The Coral Castle was built by one man with no modern tools, so what could 10,000 do with a lifetime devoted to do it? Just because you and I scratch our heads in wonder doesn't mean they used a single advance method outside of very primitive skill sets using a lot of people with a lot of time.

It is hard for us to repeat today because we cannot find 1000 people willing to devote 30 years non-stop to a task...lol

Well besides a powered winch...

For decades, the park featured a perfectly balanced stone gate that, despite its weight, would easily swing open with a strong breeze or the push of a finger. How it worked remained a mystery until 1986 when it stopped moving. When the gate was removed it was revealed that it rotated on a metal shaft and rested on a truck bearing.

cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net...

originally posted by: Hanslune
When the gate was removed it was revealed that it rotated on a metal shaft and rested on a truck bearing.

Lol good to know, but still I do not think people truly understand what raw manpower and all the time in the world can accomplish. My personal belief is there has been those Leonardo da Vinci's throughout history and when one pops up at the right place humans are greatly advanced for a short period of time. Sometimes that knowledge is lost and with the lack of communication past local areas, or deemed secret society stuff, it wasn't allow it to spread and that knowledge is needed to be reinvented down the road, but we can see great things accomplished with limited tech due to these moments in time of super genius inspirations.

a reply to: carsforkids

I like how Battlestar Galactica put it
All of this has happened before, all this will happen again



I think it was heavily influenced by that verse.

originally posted by: 5StarOracle
a reply to: Harte

Of course there is...
I won’t even bother to mention the ancient natural nuclear reactors...
Instead I’ll just point towards Mohenjo-Daro and the blast site...

Then perhaps you can explain how mud brick houses were still standing after this magic nuclear blast or any residual radiation there? There was no nuclear detonation at Mohenjo Daro.

originally posted by: Raggedyman

Do we have overpopulation? Don’t think so... To many babies, not where I live

Who doesn’t want farming advances, who believes that. Farming advances are money earned, where’d you get that from?

Holy and genocidal wars? Really, maybe you but not sure I know of many. Elaborate maybe?

And, why no history, it vanished like the ascended masters maybe, no tech at all.
Selfish beast, good riddance

Or maybe they killed themselves more likely

Farming Advances, it may be money earned but if you don't have the money to invest IN the modern system you might have some pride and call it garbage when in reality you just can't afford it.

You know of no holy wars? Your joking right, 2 words. Middle East

No history is easy, the comet that wiped out humanity and caused the flood myths 12-14,000 years ago.

We have found traces of modern humans up to 140,000 years ago. Look what we've done in 2k.
Your assuming their "material" science has progressed exactly as ours which makes sense for our modern understanding. However maybe they branched into acoustics and natural energies instead of the path our modern world went.

We have no idea, insinuating that you understand the last 140,000 years more than anyone else is just false.

a reply to: peter vlar

They were built after not hard to figure that out... lol

a reply to: 5StarOracle

then where is all of the background radiation? And how do you know when the structures were built? When was this nuclear war in Pakistan? There should be ample evidence for such an event many thousands of years after the fact.

originally posted by: Hanslune

Only if we assume that they had a large population.

But with mastodons around for food, and no particular need for a favorable young-to-old ratio, why would they do that to themselves?

Why not keep their numbers small, and enjoy life?

Lots of HG groups did so until just recently and a few continue but such small groups historically don't develop high technology as they lack the specialization to do so.

In modern history they didn't have time to specialize. Getting food required most of their time.

A few nobles would sit atop a giant heap of thousands of peasants eeking out a miserable existence (and fighting tooth and nail to find a way to break into the aristocracy.)

But I think there was a time when getting food required only a small fraction of the available work force.


Imagine if everyone were an aristocrat, and they didn't need to fight amongst themselves over social status, because nobody was going to be subject to misery.

A small population would host a large aristocracy.

originally posted by: glend
If advanced civilization previously existed on earth we would likely see the remains of some of their technology in geostationary orbit. Without any remains in space its likely that previous cultures achieved a certain point before environment turned ugly.

Have you heard of the "Black Knight" satellite conspiracy theory?

en.wikipedia.org...

originally posted by: Skyhigh00

Do we have overpopulation? Don’t think so... To many babies, not where I live

Population is an interesting topic. The max population of humans will be about 11 billion and then it will go in the other direction rather quickly. Economics plays into it all, and the areas that have achieved a higher level today their populations are not only stagnated but are decreasing. In America, as example, our population would be decreasing if it wasn't for immigration. Many parts of the world it is decreasing... So what drives this?

In a poor area families have a lot of kids, they provide income to a family and as economics get better kids stop being an asset and start to be a liability. In 100 years the Americas will still be at a billion, EU will still be 1 billion, Asia will only grow from 4 to 5 billion since some parts are still poor, but Africa will grow from 1 billion to 4 then it will stop. This is a growth from 7 to 10 billion in 100 years. The extra billion will be because life expectancy will increase, so outside of Africa the rest of the world will be about the same in population as it is today.

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous

But I think there was a time when getting food required only a small fraction of the available work force.

Well not until about 1900...Food was pretty much a big deal and not a short process to prepare. If the men worked the fields and farm animals from sunup to sundown and the women spent all day preparing I would say food in general was pretty much what everyone did all the time. Take a live chicken you raised from an egg and put it on your table using coal as your fuel as example. You were either growing, making, trading all the time everyday. This is why Sundays were a big deal, but it was still a big process even on the one non-work day.

a reply to: bloodymarvelous


They Left the Planet .