'Oldest man-made structure' unearthed ?

Here's something for discussion, I put the question mark in the title since this claim is disputed within the article itself.

www.iol.co.za

A stone calendar that is apparently older than 75 000 years has been discovered in Mpumalanga.

Adam's Calendar - as it has been named by the two South Africans who discovered the find - is reportedly the oldest man-made structure on Earth.

This astonishing claim, which could set the scientific world in a spin, has been made in a picture book which is being released worldwide on Monday.

The last line of the quote above may be telling, a book being released along with this claim could lead one to believe it could be a marketing deal.

Could Adam's calendar be true to the claim or is it the latest in junk science?

Very interesting find, thank you!

I wonder...... the article talked about the differing materials, the stones being dolomite (if I recall correctly)... I would want to find out how far away the nearest deposit of dolomite is from the site. Perhaps there would be more clues to the finite dating of the stones if they could find the excavation site, as well as providing addtional evidence that they were, in fact, moved by other than natural forces.

If they are lined up "perfectly" with the four directions, I wonder how that would compare with magnetic north of, say, 75,000 years ago? If the evidence supports that there IS a magnetic alignment there, that'd seems pretty impressive to me for an ancient civilization to even be aware of a way of measuring direction, or geometry to strike a bisecting line between the sun's path.

Looks like accurate dating of the moving of the stones is critical.

Good story, thanks OP!

The article said the stones came from several kilometers away.

Its very hard to date stones without doing an exhaustive dig of the area- that AFAIK hasn't been done. The marketing associated with this "discovery" makes one suspecious.

I'd say real stones, maybe set up by man but the date is way way out there.

As so often happens with these types of claims, more data is needed

Here's some pictures of the structure:

Taken from the downloadable online PDF:
Adam's Calendar
July 2008
by Johan Heine & Michael Tellinger
Published by Zulu Planet Publishers

cheebay-

"Adam" is a reference to Adam and Eve from the Bible. It's merely a clever title for what is believed to be the oldest man made structure on Earth.

And what better way to have scientists and archeologists take your find seriously than by giving it a Biblically referenced name....... wait a minute...... maybe that wasn't such a good idea.

Forgive my skepticism,
But isn't it possible that the stones are 75000 years old, and were moved and etched up and set up much more recently?
Carbon dating just dates the year of the stone, i thought, not when it was possibly aligned.

Originally posted by ThreeDeuce
Forgive my skepticism,
But isn't it possible that the stones are 75000 years old, and were moved and etched up and set up much more recently?
Carbon dating just dates the year of the stone, i thought, not when it was possibly aligned.

I find it unlikely that the carbon dating the stones would specify a date, since AFAIK its impossible to do. Carbon dating is for organic matter.

If 75 000 years makes scientists "heads spin" their heads must be small indeed.

Im always surprised at the indignation and skepticism towards everything that surpasses little pea-brain.

Good post.

Originally posted by ThreeDeuce
Forgive my skepticism,
But isn't it possible that the stones are 75000 years old, and were moved and etched up and set up much more recently?

The stones are more likely to be 700 million years old (or much older) and could be up to 3 billion years old. Given that they seem to be dolomite, I'd suspect a lot younger than 3 billion years.
www.southafrica.to...

I looked at information on state parks in the area of Mpumalanga, South Africa, (where "Adams Calendar" is located) and found that the geology of the area is dolomite (soft limestone) and quartzite, deposited in layers.
www.mpumalanga.com...

In order to prove that they were set up there 70,000 years ago, there needs to be found bones from that era (not impossible) that show human activity (flint tool marks... very distinctive) and/or fire pits (which were known at that time) as well as some hand tools (scrapers, choppers, etc. The stones can't be directly dated, but are dated through organic remains we find on the site.

Carbon dating just dates the year of the stone, i thought, not when it was possibly aligned.

No carbon in the stones to be dated... and most rocks take a very long time to form.

However, you're right... dating rocks gives you no information about when they moved into the place. South Africa WAS near Antarctica and the rocks could have moved into place (or even into that area, leaving humans to do the final setup) during any of the four major Ice Ages:
en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by lucid eyes
If 75 000 years makes scientists "heads spin" their heads must be small indeed.

It doesn't. Scientists are continually revising things, but they want more proof than the author of "Slave Species of the Gods" whose credentials include a Bachelors' in pharmacy, credits as an actor and songwriter, but who apparently can't tell an Australopithecus from an Aardvark:
en.wikipedia.org...

Im always surprised at the indignation and skepticism towards everything that surpasses little pea-brain.

In reading about something that SEEMS impossible, the first thing to do is check the credentials of the claim.
* Does the person making the claim have a good background in the field?
* Are they often quoted by others in the field? (sometimes laymen's work IS cited by scientists. Although I'm not a paleontologist, I will be cited some year by paleontologists who supervise me for my work on the Alamosaurus.)
* Is there other evidence that supports the claim?
* Do the rest of their supporting facts match what's known? (in this case, the article quotes an archaeologist at a nearby university saying that the sites have been studied before (in spite of the claim by one of the discoverers that they've been dismissed out of hand and so forth) -- so I suspect if you knew the terms to use and went digging through academic papers and PhD dissertations, you'd find several dozen papers on the area.)

The question of the star alignment to "70,000 years ago" is a good one. Depending on what stars you pick, you could probably find ways of aligning it to any number of stars. And remember, the look of the constellations 70,000 years ago was a bit different because the apparent position of the stars changes as our sun drifts through the galaxy.

The ruins have been there for thousands of years and is believed to have been the

first city ever built. The city stretches for thousands of kilometers from Mpumalanga

all the way to Kenya.

They are
Older than the Giza Pyramids
and
Older than Stonehenge


75,000 years ago… early humans built a stone calendar that predates all other man-made structures found to date.


Adam's Calendar

Circular ruins that are spread over hundreds of kilometres over the Mpumalanga escarpment. While some have held them to be examples of abandoned cattle kraals from 13th century Bantu settlements, recent research has shown that the circles were inhabited by an ancient civilisation. Similar to the famous Incas of South America, this ancient society had a healthy appetite for gold, which was mined in the immediate vicinity, as well as a sophisticated knowledge of agriculture and astrology. the oldest man-made structures on Earth and a unique display of artifacts that span a period of 280,000 years of human habitation. Lose yourself in the spectacular photographs of mysterious ancient stone ruins and discover an ancient stone city, once larger than modern-day Johannesburg.

A website on Adams Calendar

www.adamscalendar.com




[edit on 7-9-2009 by halfmanhalfamazing]

Originally posted by argentus
Very interesting find, thank you!

I wonder...... the article talked about the differing materials, the stones being dolomite (if I recall correctly)... I would want to find out how far away the nearest deposit of dolomite is from the site. Perhaps there would be more clues to the finite dating of the stones if they could find the excavation site, as well as providing addtional evidence that they were, in fact, moved by other than natural forces.

If they are lined up "perfectly" with the four directions, I wonder how that would compare with magnetic north of, say, 75,000 years ago? ...

Yeah, mag north would be an eye opener, but I'd be more more convinced if there was some indication of which north they lined up with. Celestial North of 75Kbp or Celestial north of now.

About your Dolomite question... evidently it's fairly common in the area:

...Birders should not miss out on an opportunity to see Chrissiesmeer, which is the largest natural freshwater lake in South Africa, and famous for flamingos. The Sudwala Caves deep in the dolomite rocks of the surrounding mountains, is worth visiting....

www.adventurezone.co.za...

Aloe alooides (Bolus) ....

Large single-stemed aloe, 1-3 m: on rocky dolomite slopes in grassland and bushy thickets...

Distribution: endemic to Mpumalanga, occuring sporadically on dolomite between Sudwala Caves and Blyde River Canyon N.R...

Google Search Hit



[edit on 7-9-2009 by RoofMonkey]

It would be fantastic if this were true, even if it's not as old as they claim, then still a great find.

My only reservation is slightly more flippant than some of the scientific theories here, an anagram of Adam's Calendar is 'a dream scandal'




or 'dads anal cream'.

Thanks very much for the post; i would look into that. If this is truly man-made structure; then it may be stretch human long back..

Originally posted by Byrd
... who apparently can't tell an Australopithecus from an Aardvark...

Haw, haw haw!!
Second line...very funny and a spot-on response, as usual, Byrd. Star for you!

reply to post by Byrd


The primary star in the constellation draco was used for navigation prior to the north star polaris becoming the guiding star of today. This occurred about 2000 years ago.

Reads a bit funny... like a Carney at a Fair.

"Join the MaKomati community. and receive a weekly photograph with a description of some of the many spectacular stone ruins of southern Africa."
...

"Welcome to the home of …

The Oldest Man-made Structures on Earth.

Older than the Giza pyramids

Older than Stonehenge



A 75,000 year-old stone calendar - In the cradle of humankind

A new discovery of an ancient circular monolithic stone calendar site in Mpumalanga has proven to be at least 75,000 years old, pre-dating any other structure found to date. Southern Africa holds some of the deepest mysteries in all of human history. What we are told is that at around 60,000 years ago the early humans migrated from Africa and populated the rest of the world."

www.adamscalendar.com...


About 75,000 years ago, I think the human population may have been a wee bit preoccupied.


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/3441e4c0b332.jpg[/atsimg]

But.. you never know. My cousins and I were never above turning Limestone rocks over or propping them up in odd formations during the summer. I doubt seriously if someone will come along and try to turn a buck off of our youthful summer activities.

Eh, whatever.

According to the Toba catastrophe theory, 70,000 to 75,000 years ago a supervolcanic event at Lake Toba, on Sumatra, reduced the world's human population to 10,000 or even a mere 1,000 breeding pairs, creating a bottleneck in human evolution. The theory was proposed in 1998 by Stanley H. Ambrose of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

en.wikipedia.org...

[edit on 8-9-2009 by RoofMonkey]