Evidence of Ancient Advanced Civilizations...Would We Find It?

Greetings, ATS!

Let me start with a caveat. This post is pure speculation. I have no sources, no quotes, no videos or links to support my theory. In fact, I hesitate to call this a "theory," because that would imply some scientific validity and I have none to offer.

So, what I would like to do is have a discussion with some of our more knowledgeable members about the likelihood that advanced civilizations existed, AND that we would find evidence of such existence today.

This is what I'm pondering. I'm 38 years old, and in my lifetime I've seen some amazing leaps in technology that I never dreamed of occurring. I've watched our society go digital, so to speak. The majority of our correspondence is now online, we archive important information and photos online, etc. Just one thumb drive can hold vast amounts of information.

As our society continues to advance, will the amount of "findable" artifacts decrease? For example....imagine twenty-five years from now a global cataclysm occurs and the few surviving humans are thrown back to the stone age. The infrastructure we depend upon is destroyed, perhaps buried in volcanic ash or washed away in great tsunamis.

Now imagine a million years goes by, and the survivors have advanced enough to be on par with our current level of technology. Would they find evidence of our civilization? Would anything be left to find?

I've watched the television show "Life After People" and it seems, to me at least, that most of our leavings would be gone in the fullness of time. Especially since a lot of our existence is now "in the cloud," so to speak.

What do you think, ATS? Am I completely deluded, or is there perhaps some plausibility in this scenario?

Gratefully,

smiley

Originally posted by smyleegrl
Greetings, ATS!

Let me start with a caveat. This post is pure speculation. I have no sources, no quotes, no videos or links to support my theory. In fact, I hesitate to call this a "theory," because that would imply some scientific validity and I have none to offer.

So, what I would like to do is have a discussion with some of our more knowledgeable members about the likelihood that advanced civilizations existed, AND that we would find evidence of such existence today.

This is what I'm pondering. I'm 38 years old, and in my lifetime I've seen some amazing leaps in technology that I never dreamed of occurring. I've watched our society go digital, so to speak. The majority of our correspondence is now online, we archive important information and photos online, etc. Just one thumb drive can hold vast amounts of information.

As our society continues to advance, will the amount of "findable" artifacts decrease? For example....imagine twenty-five years from now a global cataclysm occurs and the few surviving humans are thrown back to the stone age. The infrastructure we depend upon is destroyed, perhaps buried in volcanic ash or washed away in great tsunamis.

Now imagine a million years goes by, and the survivors have advanced enough to be on par with our current level of technology. Would they find evidence of our civilization? Would anything be left to find?

I've watched the television show "Life After People" and it seems, to me at least, that most of our leavings would be gone in the fullness of time. Especially since a lot of our existence is now "in the cloud," so to speak.

What do you think, ATS? Am I completely deluded, or is there perhaps some plausibility in this scenario?

Gratefully,

smiley

Watch Battlestar Galactica.

reply to post by smyleegrl


Anything left behind, there will be archaeological evidence of it. Some things preserve and it's just a matter of time before it's found. It can't all be totally eradicated with time.

I think the more important question to ask is.."If someone found evidence of ancient advanced civilizations, will it be handled properly and made public knowledge, or will it be discarded and suppressed?"

I have a feeling that any findings that challenge the existing paradigm of thought will not be handled properly.

Originally posted by NarcolepticBuddha
reply to post by smyleegrl

 

Anything left behind, there will be archaeological evidence of it. Some things preserve and it's just a matter of time before it's found. It can't all be totally eradicated with time.

I think the more important question to ask is.."If someone found evidence of ancient advanced civilizations, will it be handled properly and made public knowledge, or will it be discarded and suppressed?"

edit on 19-4-2013 by NarcolepticBuddha because: (no reason given)

Thanks for the reply.

Why do you think the information might be suppressed? I'm curious.

reply to post by smyleegrl


Well, there's a couple reasons I can think of. Some people just don't like to have their ingrained, dogmatic beliefs contradicted.

And some just benefit from a maintained status of mystification.


I'm not saying I believe in ancient advanced civilizations one way or the other; just that any discovery that doesn't fit the existing paradigm of what we think we know is usually cast aside as "pseudoscience"

Remember, not everything preserves. A lot of our plastics and like materials will not. But there will be evidence of long-withstanding metals/ alloys/ non-organic compounds etc, and also man-made modifications to the landscapes etc.

Although, "a million years" is a really long time from our human perspectives. I don't think it would take a million years for any cataclysm survivors to bounce back technologically (well, depends on who survives, doesn't it? )

Modern humans have only been around for about 100,000-200,000 years (conservatively speaking.) Yeah, if we're talking about a million years, you might have a harder time finding physical evidence of past civilization, I agree but it's far from impossible.

We seem to find dinosaur fossils just fine, and those are considerably older than a million years.

In essence, I answer, "Yes, I think we would find it." Do I think those who find it might want to manipulate such a discovery? Oh yeah..

In ten thousand years, most of what we make today would return to the earth. Even a diamond ring that is buried would be indiscernible as taking it out of a rock would distort it. A solid gold artifact may survive even in rock. It would be viewed as an out of place artifact today.

I know that finding an artifact made of gold in a tomb from three thousand years ago doesn't have to mean the artifact was made at that time. It could be a million year old artifact that someone dug up and put into their collection. We assume that the artifacts were made about that time too often. Where is the proof of an ancient evolved civilization? Possibly in plain sight. They found a gold bell buried deep in a mountain buried in coal. It was formed right into the coal. This means something built it millions of years ago.

I do not believe we are the first advanced civilization to live here on earth. I don't even think we are that advanced, a really advanced civilization would take care of their environment to insure an easy life for everyone in the future. We seem to be very unintelligent, making multitudes of things that we don't need. We move our stores far from the house and can't walk there. We stupidly got reliant on technology, this will bite us in the butt later on.

If these advanced beings were around long ago, what happened to them? Are they still around flying around in UFO's and watching after us so we do not destroy this world. Do they have bases somewhere underground, a problem that occurred with their genetics from screwing up the environment and having to move down there, or could they have bases under the sea. Who knows, the possibilities are endless. It is very possible that in the life of the earth that some species got very advanced. Look at the odds. I always look at odds.

Id say the best evidence is OPART out of place artifacts

They found a lot of small hollow metal spheres 1 inch in diameter with a line carved around the center of them

I think they wer found in a coal mine an the depths of the dirt it was discovered in was dated millions of years before most theorys

They are man made an no one knows how or why

I don't think much would survive unless it was written in stone... literally. And even then, if some of our modern technology were found preserved in coal or fossilized, it would likely become fringe science and otherwise disappear, because by then the future's theories would prevail and we would not likely be part of that thinking.

It is my opinion that humanity is far older than it is given credit for, and I firmly believe our ancestors were far more intelligent than is generally accepted. It is easier to cause things to disappear or dismiss them as hoax than it is to rewrite history. "Anomalies" exist in our time, what makes anyone think our descendants wouldn't be like that too?

If you want to find evidence of advanced civilizations then South America would be a good start, Slayer has an excellent thread were he talks about how at a good majority of sites you have huge finely crafted stone blocks but as the ages past, the workmanship slides as if they are losing the talent.

He makes a good argument for an older and more ancient architect and i agree with him in that. Göbekli Tepe is a good site to comb over so is Yonaguni Monument (Graham Hancock has a fascinating theory behind some of those it really is intriguing). There is also the city of Dwarka, Krishna's old respite (just don't say that in the west) that was recovered near India. And also that city type landmass found near Cuba too.

Your on the right track, there was an ancient advanced civilization. But what if there was more than one?

I have spent much of my life looking for evidence of previous civilizations. So far I have found zero evidence. But there is some small evidence for man being more advanced before. But no evidence of it here in Earth.

Humans were an advanced space faring people. We built robots. The robots rebelled. We ran. God made a home for us here. A home that is so conducive to human life that it arose naturally before we came here.

We were led here by God to this planet. We came, sent our ships to the sun and settled in. We brought tools to help us survive and ways of doing things much more advanced than we have today. Those tools and sentimental trinkets wore out in time, but a few survive. They are called OOPARTs now. In time the ancient knowledge was lost and we had to start over. Now here we are again. Fixing to create sentient robots. Trying for the stars.

No ancient technological civilization has ever existed on Earth. Refugees came with technology, culture, and knowledge all of which has been lost in time.

One of my favorite speculations

Earlier thread on the same subject - there are lots more too

A site that rather demolishes the idea of 'unknown advanced civilizations' - being that it was occupied for 250,000 years and covers the time from cira 350,000 bc to 100,000 BC

Bolomor

Far to much evidence survives from civilizations - unless it was very local and small and could be wiped out by a single direct strike of an asteroid or buried by a volcanic eruption or sank into the sea (and they never ventured beyond)

Additional post that may be of interest

Post

1. Much older than "10,000 BC" the farther you go back the less distinct and precise the geological and other data becomes.

2. A human or other settlement that was very small, not more than 10-20,000 people. A civilization footprint increases by leaps and bounds as the number of people in it increases. If you can keep it very small it is easier to miss it.

3. No traveling or trading, if they are isolated and don't seek contact they then leave fewer artifacts and traces. People who do travel and trade leave lots of traces.

4. Complete destruction. The farther you go back the less accurate is science's detection of events. If you go back far enough sites can be subducted and completely destroyed. Human habitations and artifacts are rather difficult to destroy completely, for example look at Thera, a great deal survived an enormous explosion.

5. The colony used unknown technologies that left no trace - but this doesn't explain the traces that would have been left BEFORE they developed that technology.

6. Unknown source, ie this colony came from some unknown source other than human evolution. This is possibility but at present no evidence supports it. [ex/]

edit on 19/4/13 by Hanslune because: (no reason given)

I think we do have evidence of Advanced Civilizations all over but it is dismissed and we are told they weren't that advanced and we are lead to believe they built these monuments with sticks and stones so to speak. Our ancestors were not stupid and I think they were a lot smarter than we give them credit for. Just because they didnt have our "technology" doesnt' mean they didn't have their own type of technology to build massive structures.

I remember the show Life After People and thought the same thing. Nothing would be left for us to find and if there was I think it wouldn't be allowed to be public. Imagine what is buried in the deserts, in the ocean or just right underneath you!! If there were civilization around say 1million yrs ago we probably wouldn't find much of their existence. I bet there are may civilizations out there in our past that we will never know about. I think some of these objects are those out of place artifacts. Imagine the artifacts on the black market and in private collections.

I dont think they want us to know that we have been advanced in the past over and over. I mean come on people still believe we have only been here 6000yrs so something that is 10,000yrs old to them wouldn't be allowed to exist! We are suppose to believe we are the superior ones and that our ancestors were just silly cavemen.

I wish all findings would be made public and the truth revealed but sadly I dont think it will, not at least in my lifetime.

I don't know if you have FB or not but look up Brien Foerster (location is Peru). He is ALWAYS posting interesting finds in South America and he even has a new book out on Ancient Lost Tech of South America. I love his FB page and the stuff he posts. He is very active on there. Right now he is in Egypt with many other people in his field. I Can't wait to see their new findings.

4 Billion Years.. wonder how many times earth recycled it self, how many advanced civilization s nothing but dust. To think we now(a mere 200,000 yr old species, with a 100 yr advanced tech) as a advanced civilization on earth is funny.

Advanced civilization does not have to take the technological path we did, they could have taken more subtle natural path, like harnessing energy from fire and lightning and wind, but more advanced then what we ave done.

Originally posted by smyleegrl
I've watched the television show "Life After People" and it seems, to me at least, that most of our leavings would be gone in the fullness of time. Especially since a lot of our existence is now "in the cloud," so to speak.

Not a chance that evidence of us would be gone.

A decent chance, on the other hand, that it might never be found.

The show you mention was simply wrong. They only talked about the superficial things. Sure, skyscrapers would be gone. But the foundations of skyscrapers would only be gone if someone removed them.

Concerning a million years later, we have evidence for people more than a million years ago. Anyone a million years from now could find more evidence for these people, they'd just be two million years old by then.

All the evidence we have of our past survived the last Ice Age. We have found the remains of grass huts that were built on beaches (beaches) tens of thousands of years old. We have found wooden spears that are hundreds of thousands of years old.

Okay, it's possible we haven't found evidence for every civilization that ever existed, every culture that ever succeeded. But we've found enough to know there weren't any highly advanced ones in the past. If there were, why was everyone else making their tools by breaking rocks?

Harte

reply to post by Harte


You are jumping to a lot of conclusions here...

The foundations of buildings could be the first things to go because water collects underground and doesn't dry up like it does above ground. The water would corrode and penetrate all the man made material below.

Also... even though we could know of million year old mans remains that doesn't mean entire eras on Earth couldn't be wiped away and destroyed by catastrophes. Those million year old eras could be protected by a calm environment before and after the era. If an era did NOT have a calm spell during it's time they could easily be destroyed without a trace.

Originally posted by TheKeyMaster
reply to post by Harte

 

You are jumping to a lot of conclusions here...

The foundations of buildings could be the first things to go because water collects underground and doesn't dry up like it does above ground. The water would corrode and penetrate all the man made material below.

Also... even though we could know of million old mans remains that doesn't mean entire eras on Earth couldn't be wiped away and destroyed by catastrophes. Those million old eras could be protected by a calm environment before and after the era. If an era did NOT have a calm spell during it's time they could easily be destroyed without a trace.

A wooden stake driven into the ground will leave that impression in the soil and the sedimentary rock it hardens into - that will only be destroyed by subduction. How do you destroy kilometer long tunnels in granite? We made several hundred just in this civilization? So where are the old ones? Why don't we find old mines, precious gems, cut ones are all but indestructible - no sign of them, etc

Again you are using the 'it was all wiped away" but people at the same time contradict themselves by saying we have traces - so which is it? Castastrophes leave evidence of their passage and we have fossils and archaeological remains from many areas- if they were 'wiped' clean why are they NOT wiped clean?

Look at my link to the Bolomor site above.

Originally posted by Hanslune

A wooden stake driven into the ground will leave that impression in the soil and the sedimentary rock it hardens into - that will only be destroyed by subduction. How do you destroy kilometer long tunnels in granite? We made several hundred just in this civilization? So where are the old ones? Why don't we find old mines, precious gems, cut ones are all but indestructible - no sign of them, etc

You are talking about nanoseconds of time in the big scheme of things. These tunnels and things you talk about could be wiped away by massive violent earthquakes we can't even fathom... if someone had never experienced an extreme hurricane they could never conceive of winds driving a wooden splinter through a tree or metal. The era we have lived in is like the calm before the storm.

Also, remember that people live near water sources mainly. The water level has risen dramatically in history. Add massive erosion to that and entire civilizations could be covered with sediment or wiped off the face of the Earth by solar events or meteors. Look at the dinosaurs.. they lived for millions of years yet relatively speaking we see very few fossils when you think about it. Think how many dinosaurs must have existed... especially compared to man. and how large they were. The fossils seem like a lot to us.. but when you consider how long they lived it's likely a ridiculously low amount. And we have lived for a nano second compared to the dinosaurs.

Again you are using the 'it was all wiped away" but people at the same time contradict themselves by saying we have traces - so which is it? Castastrophes leave evidence of their passage and we have fossils and archaeological remains from many areas- if they were 'wiped' clean why are they NOT wiped clean?

Look at my link to the Bolomor site above.

But the traces seemed to have been designed to survive just such events. This shows us that at some time these people were aware they could be lost in time.. maybe like legend told them past civilizations were lost in time... yet they KNEW the past civilizations existed and we do not because that information may be kept from the general population or because over time we have convinced ourselves it was a myth or a wive's tale.

Originally posted by Harte

Originally posted by smyleegrl
I've watched the television show "Life After People" and it seems, to me at least, that most of our leavings would be gone in the fullness of time. Especially since a lot of our existence is now "in the cloud," so to speak.

Not a chance that evidence of us would be gone.

A decent chance, on the other hand, that it might never be found.

The show you mention was simply wrong. They only talked about the superficial things. Sure, skyscrapers would be gone. But the foundations of skyscrapers would only be gone if someone removed them.

Concerning a million years later, we have evidence for people more than a million years ago. Anyone a million years from now could find more evidence for these people, they'd just be two million years old by then.

All the evidence we have of our past survived the last Ice Age. We have found the remains of grass huts that were built on beaches (beaches) tens of thousands of years old. We have found wooden spears that are hundreds of thousands of years old.

Okay, it's possible we haven't found evidence for every civilization that ever existed, every culture that ever succeeded. But we've found enough to know there weren't any highly advanced ones in the past. If there were, why was everyone else making their tools by breaking rocks?

Harte

Actually there is a chance. Your opinion goes according to the point of view of our current civilization and technology. We don't know the way the next civilization will be developed. Example : What If they will be able to control time traveling? In that case they would be able to retrieve any data from the past. Don't say it isn't possible

Other posibility is that there is no other civilization and we prevail, against all odds and learn to coexist in harmony. Don't say it's impossible neither.

You can bet our ancient ancestors had advanced technology.

Now I'm not saying they had iPads or anything like that, but there was a world wide trade route.
There's evidence of this in every country. They knew of electricity, and used it they had saws, cranes
drills, sophisticated mapping techniques.

With trade you have to assume a common language, math, and currency. All these huge cities under
the oceans, how did they get there if not built at least a 150,000 years ago before the last Ice Age?

That's more than enough time to develop technology, and culture.

If you still don't think this is possible I say look at Leonardo Divinci very advanced things came from his mind
long before our technological society.

reply to post by terriblyvexed



That's a great point about Da Vinci.. imagine if he had some more people around who were as smart as him as well. It seemed his problem was that he had no one else around like that.

I am curious why you think the advance civilization had to exist so long ago though - 150,000 years. What makes you think it was that long ago? I think both all eras are possible though.