[toolslive]

It's what a lot of engineers have been saying for decades: Looking at the surfaces of the artefacts, it's obvious more advanced tooling, than what was claimed by archaeologists, must have been used. Oh irony, the bits were already lying about in the museum's archive for a century.

[MarkusQ]

Quite frustrating how archeology swings over the years from "we'll believe anything" to "we won't accept any claim without a preserved example". While some of the excesses of the past were clearly excessive, drilled holes should have been sufficient evidence of drills, people living on islands should be sufficient evidence of boats, rope-worn bones should be considered evidence of rope and so forth.

[robin_reala]

people living on islands should be sufficient evidence of boats

Historical sea levels were wildly different at different times, so not necessarily. For instance, the British isles were settled at a point when it was a part of the mainland: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Doggerland.png

[andrewflnr]

Balance would be nice, yes, but I think the conservative approach is closer to correct, especially given the natural human bias toward believing sensational theories.

[beloch]

It's possible to put holes through things without a drill. People can get onto islands without boats. How do you define rope, and what else might cause similar wear? Are you certain you can distinguish them?

Archaeology has come a long way over the last couple of centuries. It used to be little better than grave robbing and crackpot (often racist) theories. Archaeologists made all sorts of assumptions that turned out to be ridiculously (and sometimes tragically) wrong. Excavations once involved dynamite and bulldozers. Things have changed. Techniques for re-analyzing and extracting new information from old finds are allowing archaeologists to make discoveries without digging at all. Even a careful, modern dig is a destructive act that can only be conducted once.

It's not frustrating. It's progress.

[mmooss]

> archeology swings over the years from "we'll believe anything" to "we won't accept any claim without a preserved example".

Could you provide some evidence of your own? Archaeology has always been tied to evidence, as any scholarship is.

[Intermernet]

This is true, but archaeology has been settled for a while now on what constitutes sufficient evidence. Believe it or not, it's actually a pretty new science.

[saidnooneever]

they dont even accept claims with properly documented and preserved samples. your methodology doesnt matter if it disagrees with the common accepted 'truth'.

archeology is a cesspool.

not to mention tons of hings being twisted into weird shit only to try and push colonial agendas!

[FranklinJabar]

> we'll believe anything

Can you explain what you're referring to? Obviously "ancient aliens" does not count as archaeology, despite your insistence otherwise.

[gehsty]

It sounds very un-archaeologist to not investigate the gap between artifact and tooling (like that’s their job?).

For me the ‘archaeology not accepting things’ has been fueled by Graham Hancock etc. Archaeology is a lot like science, it sits on a body of research, if there’s evidence of advanced tooling and it’s properly investigated and written up, verified, no archaeologist would deny it.

[dev_l1x_be]

I am really curious about the scoop marks across the globe. The hole drilling story is only interesting because of the precision and feed-per-revolution which is probably why archaeologists does not understand how advanced those people creating this holes must have been.

[jazz9k]

It's this kind of gate keeping in archaeology that has kept Graham Hancock out of the industry for years, and we are now just finding out his theories are true.

My theory is that the industry is so small, they are afraid it will put them out of a career.

[Intermernet]

No judgement, but what theories of Hancock have been proven to be true?

[FranklinJabar]

This is true in many, many, many, many places. It takes a significantly higher bar of evidence to put forward specific tooling than an engineer's intuition to make the mark in archaeology.