The Ancient Zodiac, and Prehistoric Understanding of Precession

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(Edited)

Gobekli Tepe is enabling a revolution in many sciences that deal with human society, and none more profoundly than archaeology. The construction of the megaliths at about the time of the Younger Dryas predates the expectations of researchers by thousands of years, because it predates the development of agriculture, which was previously considered necessary to organization and monumental construction of this nature.

Amazingly, the site appears to have been an historical hagiography, with the events of the Younger Dryas told on the stones, particularly Stone 43.

Martin Sweatman shows how the figures carved on that stone date the comet impact that so devastated the world ~13kya.

In this series of videos (which I have only just discovered and have not yet completed watching) Sweatman discusses evidence that the carvings represent Zodiacal constellations, with a probability of 1 in 140 million.

Given the horrific destruction humanity endured, providing to their posterity understanding of the danger and enabling them to be prepared for it's repeat was advisable, and an admirable undertaking by our ancestors.

It's possible that cataclysm destroyed such civilization as had earlier arisen, which I and many others believe there is good evidence for. Should such an event happen today, I have little doubt we would be similarly reduced to abject penury, and primitive technology would be all that was left to us to undertake bare survival.

The media today blare dire warnings of utter catastrophe that will befall us with a 1 or 2 degree change in global temperature, and a rise in sea level of a meter or two.

After the Younger Dryas impact, sea level rose over 100 meters and temperature plummeted ~15 degrees for a thousand years. Whatever human societies may have prospered prior to that time are almost exclusively deep beneath the waves, as our semi-aquatic species lives at the coast. 90% of us live within ten feet of sea level today. It's pretty likely that very productive interface between land and sea has always been the focus of human industry and habitation.

I cannot help but imagine a ragtag society of survivors of such unimaginable cataclysm determining to warn their posterity about the danger, and perhaps explaining how to survive such events. Perhaps their astronomical knowledge was far greater than we presently understand, even as we have only just grasped they understood the 26,000 year precession of the equinoxes. Yet uninterpreted stelae might relate orbital information regarding the Taurid threat, likely the source of the YDB impactor, and even predictions of future impacts.

If they had the crystal balls, flying carpets, and magic wands legends relate, technologies we are only now developing and understanding are real and actual, then they may well have possessed comparable knowledge of astronomy as do we today, prior to the utter destruction of civilization and technology executed by the YDB impactor. Frankly, the specific descriptions of those 'magical' devices mirrors far too closely the present state of Iphones, Buicks, and remote controls to be credibly chance.

It is with extraordinary excitement therefore that I anticipate the continued excavation of Gobekli Tepe, most of which remains still safely buried by the deliberate action of those survivors. That burial is revelatory of their purpose.

Those stelae were not made for their religious use, which was prevented by their burial. Those stelae were preserved for the benefit of ourselves. The people that preserved them reveal they well understood the erosion, earthquakes, and vandalism that would have degraded the carvings had they remained exposed. They demonstrated not only highly technical knowledge of what was necessary to preserve their lesson, but the extreme motivation to build these lessons in megaliths and bury them to keep them intact until future archaeologists would find them upon redeveloping the blessings of civilization.

When considered by these lights, I cannot more highly regard those survivors, that undertook so diligently that warning at such high cost in blood, sweat, and tears monumental construction always exacts.

The wisdom and understanding, the love and desperately hard work they undertook on our behalf is inspirational. It also hints that understanding was no less complex and technologically competent than our own. While that remains speculative, further excavations and decoding at Gobekli Tepe may support that hypothesis, and nominal subaquatic excavations of appropriate habitation sites at the Ice Age coastline will be necessary to reveal how people did live then, and the truth of my ponderings.

In a couple centuries, we today have built up our civilization from technologies that have been understood for millenia. The people of ancient days were phenotypically competent to undertake that development, and if their brain sizes were relevant to intelligence, which I believe is demonstrable, then they were much smarter than we are today.

While it may seem unlikely in the extreme, that technological sophistication was behind the construction and preservation of Gobekli Tepe is strongly indicated by the incredible amount of work that went into preserving it, and the cautionary intent of the carvings on the massive stones preserved. Every other purpose for this site is rendered false by that burial.

It was a warning to us. We should make every effort to honor our forebears who sacrificed so much to successfully provide it to us. We should heed it, if we can but read it.



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Right up my street this :)

Been waiting a while to read 'Precession of the equinoxes' on the Steem chain.

High up and underground - not many locations worldwide but enough to keep our species alive, until the next time.

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I was delighted to find this new information. It is right up my alley as well.

It is sad that catastrophe is apparently how amazing results are spawned. I am reminded of the Chinese curse: 'May you live in interesting times.'

Thanks!

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i believe that Gobekli Tepe was built before the cataclysm.

What you have after, is not a group of people making a warning, it is tiny groups of people trying to survive.

The myths after the cataclysm are such like Quetzalcoatl going around and teaching people how to farm (again).

We are like the 13th "advanced" civilization on this planet.
That archaeologists think that we are the pinnacle in one unbroken chain is ludicrous. Only believable if you bury, hide or ignore the huge amounts of things that should not exist if such a theory were true.

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While much of the important details remain unknown, much speculation remains unresolved. You and I have very different views, which I cherish, because that means what you know remains to be learned by me. I find it very interesting that despite our differing understanding of various details, we seem to be largely in agreement on larger issues.

"That archaeologists think that we are the pinnacle in one unbroken chain is ludicrous."

I agree, but note that archaeologists aren't one guy with a monolithic opinion, and enjoy greatly the continuous discussion that results. Sweatman is a physicist =D. Nonetheless, he has produced one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the century.

Thanks!

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if their brain sizes were relevant to intelligence

This is always ridiculous for me by looking at the world and understanding the intelligence of insects, let alone birds that is displayed which demolishes any and all notions of such correlation between size and intelligence and I'm reminded of what someone said about the brain being merely a receiver, not a producer of intelligence.

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(Edited)

It is not widely known, but new research has recently revealed that primates, which we are, are unique among vertebrates in how brain size affects intelligence. In most vertebrates, large bodied creatures have large brains with large neurons. Whales have huge neurons.

In primates, neurons are constricted in size, and large primate brains have more neurons than small primate brains. It is quite fascinating to research recent genetic changes that have occurred in H. sapiens since our most recent common ancestors with other primates, and other human species, like Neanderthals.

Intelligence, consciousness, and brains remain very poorly understood, despite that we have learned incredible amounts recently. However, it is clear that in primates the more of a gene called DUF1220 a species has, the more intelligent it seems to be. H. sapiens has a lot more DUF1220 than Gorillas, for example. Why this is so, what DUF1220 does differently in primates, and much else, remains utterly unknown.

I am presently of the understanding that a population of humans with larger brains are a smarter population of humans. Research may show this is not true, and it's not clear because that research remains to be done.

Thanks!

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This is still predicated on the theory that neurons function as 'switches'/ transistors, so that their density is correlated to intelligence, even though that posits nature to be working with the equivalent of 1970's technology at best, all the while it's all predicated on the emergence theory, yet if consciousness is non local as has been demonstrated it makes no sense to look at the brain as the source of either consciousness or intelligence.

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While the various theories you discuss may or may not be correct, the more neurons a species generally possesses, the more intelligent it seems to be.

Folks make claims of all sorts of things, such as that consciousness is nonlocal. I note my experience of my consciousness is highly local, and I am not convinced of it's nonlocality. As you correctly note however, there is a great deal we do not know about brains, intelligence, and consciousness.

You might even be right that the three are not related. I am not convinced, and you may not be aware of voluminous information indicating they are intimately linked, or may discount it for reasons known only to you. There are certainly other factors, such as gut biomes, that contribute to intelligence, but it's unreasonable to dismiss neurology as a potential source of understanding intelligence and consciousness better, IMHO.

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Go ahead and investigate instead of dismissing it or incorrectly assuming that consciousness is local.

While there exists no scientific proof for the fact that the brain generates consciousness, there are numerous observations indicating that consciousness can under certain circumstances function independently of the brain and of the world of matter. This philosophy is referred to as non-local consciousness.

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(Edited)

"...under certain circumstances..."

This caveat does not divorce consciousness from our brains, but indicates that our consciousness is not like a barnacle is to a rock and permanently affixed to our brains. Given that caveat my experience of my consciousness being local would not be illusory or false, but perhaps not the sole possibility of experience I might be able to have regarding my locality. Please note that I did not state I knew my consciousness is local, but said:

"... I am not convinced of it's nonlocality..."

Which is not assuming anything at all.

I do not dismiss or arrogantly assume to the best of my abilities, anything. I do my very best to understand my experiences and consider them rationally. I did not dismiss your comment, but noted I found my experience relevant to the matter, and my experience was strongly supportive of locality.

Should I have more varied experiences, I am confident I will be able to realize any variance in locality that results. While I have had some relatively mystifying experiences, I remain confident that I do not have the ability to properly and reasonably determine the nature of consciousness definitively. On that I have clarity. I do have to assume that my experience of locality, as well as the general sense of others that their persons are localized in their bodies, is indicative of consciousness generally being localized, and much neurological research into folks that have had injuries to their brains reveals that such injuries changed the nature of their consciousness, which strongly indicates that brains have a significant role in consciousness.

None of that denies that consciousness may at times challenge my understanding of what locality means, or the very underlying nature of reality. If our existence is some kind of simulation, as some physicists claim to have proved mathematically, then exactly what does locality even mean? I dunno.

If you definitively grasp such reality, please let me know.

Thanks!

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This caveat does not divorce consciousness from our brains, but indicates that our consciousness is not like a barnacle is to a rock and permanently affixed to our brains.

The caveat says that consciousness as an emergent property of the brain is false since for consciousness to be localized in the brain it cannot exist outside or other than in it.

Given that caveat my experience of my consciousness being local would not be illusory or false, but perhaps not the sole possibility of experience I might be able to have regarding my locality.

Why not? The proposition is simple: the brain generated consciousness so consciousness is located in the brain. If that is false then obviously the experience you have is illusionary, either way, consciousness is generated and therefore dependant on the brain or is not, there's no in between.

Please note that I did not state I knew my consciousness is local, but said:

It doesn't matter, you can assume because of your experience, as you can assume based on what you think you know, you might call it experience or knowledge, it's based in assumption because the outlines that exists aren't investigated or tested thoroughly.

If you definitively grasp such reality, please let me know.

What you want to know is what experiences I've had that demonstrated such non-locality but what if my sharing my personal experiences will only serve to undermine your own experiences regarding consciousness and it's qualities? To waver on the side of caution, what is your experience of the moon? Is it any more or less personal than your experience of "your brain"?

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"... for consciousness to be localized in the brain it cannot exist outside or other than in it."

[citation needed] IOW, I don't agree with that assumption. There are various possibilities between the barnacle consciousness that is permanently affixed to the brain, and consciousness that can just flit about as it pleases. Claiming that the experiences reported by some folks is definitive proof of the latter state is not superable IMHO. That simply ignores that locality seems to be the common experience of conscious folks - not just me.

It also ignores that brain injuries alter consciousness. If I accept on face value the reports of folks claiming out of body experiences, which I would be gullible and foolish to do, of anyone claiming anything, that does not mean brains have naught to do with consciousness, just that brains may not be to consciousness like rocks are to barnacles.

"...The proposition is simple: the brain generated consciousness so consciousness is located in the brain. If that is false then obviously the experience you have is illusionary..."

As I pointed out above, that statement simply ignores that many other possibilities exist, and we just don't know enough about these matters to make such sweeping statements with confidence. At least, I don't.

"It doesn't matter."

I disagree. My experience is all I have. I don't experience what you do. I experience, and that is the basis for understanding I have, and that's all I have. I experience reading your comments. That is all I know about them. I don't know how you smell, what you ate, or innumerable other things you personally have experienced and therefore base your understanding on. Science is the process of disproving things that other folks can experience for themselves, and thus enable a shared understanding of a common truth.

The locality of our experience is a fundamental and necessary aspect of knowing facts.

"What you want to know is what experiences I've had that demonstrated such non-locality..."

No. What I said involved more than just reporting your experiences should you have out of body experiences. As I have stated, I cannot experience what you do. You cannot experience what I do. My telling you what I have experienced in this discussion has not convinced you I know definitively what consciousness is. In fact, you have argued that my experiences simply spawn insuperable assumptions.

Definitive understanding implies that your understanding of your experiences is able to be demonstrated to me so that I can understand the underlying reality you state is behind them. That is a far higher bar than just telling stories about your dreams. It involves reproducible experiments that I can do myself that prove to me your interpretation is factually correct.

If your experiences contradict my own, then one of us at least does not well understand what is really going on, and likely both of us. Because, it is not possible that our experiences contradict each the other, but that our intepretations and understanding of our experiences do. That's a matter of understanding and comprehension, not raw perception and experience.

There's a difference, and it's what matters.

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IOW, I don't agree with that assumption. There are various possibilities between the barnacle consciousness that is permanently affixed to the brain, and consciousness that can just flit about as it pleases.

There's only two possibilities: consciousness is generated by the brain or not. If it is generated then it cannot hold contents Exterior to the brain.

Claiming that the experiences reported by some folks is definitive proof of the latter state is not superable IMHO. That simply ignores that locality seems to be the common experience of conscious folks - not just me.

It doesn't ignore it at all, and that common experience says nothing about what constitutes consciousness at the same time. You can think that consciousness is generated by the brain because it's local but that is no different than thinking that the radio generated the broadcast because it emits from it's speaker. You can investigate the broadcast though and recognize that regardless of the correlations between the knobs and the broadcast, the broadcast carries with it information outside the radio and it's controls, hence it cannot be the source of the broadcast.

It also ignores that brain injuries alter consciousness.

It doesn't ignore that. Assume away. Correlation is not assumption.

If I accept on face value the reports of folks claiming out of body experiences, which I would be gullible and foolish to do, of anyone claiming anything, that does not mean brains have naught to do with consciousness, just that brains may not be to consciousness like rocks are to barnacles.

No, you're still trying to find a middle ground, a third option to the reality that must either exist or must be completely fabricated, that brains are the source of consciousness or that they aren't. No, a rock and a barnacle has no value what so ever as analogous to the such a reality. The matter is simple, either consciousness is the product of the brain or it is not. If it is then you must accept that anything which is contrary to it is false. Or maybe you can reconcile how a brain can possess knowledge outside of it's body.

As I pointed out above, that statement simply ignores that many other possibilities exist, and we just don't know enough about these matters to make such sweeping statements with confidence. At least, I don't.

I cannot ignore something that doesn't exist. You seem to think that there exists other possibilities. The painfully obvious fact is this: not you, not anyone else has even ONE single explanation that can reconcile the non local aspect of consciousness with the theory that the brain is the source of consciousness. Is it possible that the brain generated consciousness and is aware of things outside itself? Clearly no, the brain cannot transmit what exists outside of it, if the broadcast includes things that exist external to the radio we must conclude that the source of the broadcast is not the radio, the radio at best can only be said to receive those broadcast.

I disagree. My experience is all I have. I don't experience what you do. I experience, and that is the basis for understanding I have, and that's all I have. I experience reading your comments. That is all I know about them. I don't know how you smell, what you ate, or innumerable other things you personally have experienced and therefore base your understanding on. Science is the process of disproving things that other folks can experience for themselves, and thus enable a shared understanding of a common truth.

You can disagree all you want but until you thoroughly examined consciousness and tried to flesh put any and all experiences regarding what constitutes consciousness only then can you say that "no, consciousness is contained in my body". But if you investigate and come to repeat the same results that have been documented (verifiable) for millennia then you must assume that no, Consciousness is not Contained in my body, exactly like the radio doesn't contain the broadcast.

The locality of our experience is a fundamental and necessary aspect of knowing facts.

Nope, that is not predicated on what the source of consciousness is.

Definitive understanding implies that your understanding of your experiences is able to be demonstrated to me so that I can understand the underlying reality you state is behind them. That is a far higher bar than just telling stories about your dreams. It involves reproducible experiments that I can do myself that prove to me your interpretation is factually correct.

Incorrect, me telling you of my experience will not constitute any starting point for you to have the same kind of experience, regardless of how convincing or not I may be.

If your experiences contradict my own, then one of us at least does not well understand what is really going on, and likely both of us. Because, it is not possible that our experiences contradict each the other, but that our intepretations and understanding of our experiences do. That's a matter of understanding and comprehension, not raw perception and experience.

There's a difference, and it's what matters.

It's there for you to investigate, thoroughly and honestly, there's only two options: the brain is the source, or the brain is not.

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You may not realize it, but I deeply admire your intransigence and persistence. We disagree, and it appears from your response that will remain unaltered in this discussion. I appreciate your efforts to convince me to believe what you believe, as it is obviously a sincere effort to lead me to what you are convinced is factual.

Thanks!

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This is fantastic. Thank you for sharing. I hadn't heard of Gobekli Tepe until now, even though it was discovered in 1994.It definitely calls into question the timeline that was formerly understood about civilization's origins and progress. There's very little doubt in my mind that people before that time were biologically similar enough to pull it off. My question to myself when learning of all this stuff was, if we ceased to evolve significantly as a species millions of years before this time that civilization supposedly emerged, why didn't it happen sooner? Well, your speculations here suppose that maybe it did, and we just haven't learned of it yet.

There is also the possibility that the cataclysm that immediately preceded this emergence of civilization sharpened the collective intellect of the gene pool that survived it. This theory would go something like: The cataclysmic events killed off all but the most intellectually stout humans, and so with a small group of now exclusively intelligent humans left to rebuild the population, civilization was an inevitable consequence of this emergence.

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(Edited)

It is beneficial to keep in mind that evolution is not a directed process. [Edit: Not naturally, anyway. Domestication is human directed evolutionary forces. It is acting on humanity. Prison is culling force on human evolution, for example, today.] It isn't directional. We aren't progressing towards a goal in evolutionary terms. It's just survival to breed, which is dependent on continually varying conditions, and in fact evolution can oscillate back and forth if evolutionary pressures do.

"... the cataclysm that immediately preceded this emergence of civilization sharpened the collective intellect of the gene pool that survived it."

What is observed is that H. sapiens cranial capacity - brain size - has markedly decreased. Individual merit and intelligence is far more important in a non-social species like H. neanderthalensis than a eusocial species like H. sapiens. It seems to me that survival became higher for folks more willing to obey overlords in the conditions we have recently experienced as a species lately, and we observe that Neanderthals are extinct, despite their ~20% larger brains than we possess today. Cro Magnons, who immediately proceeded Neanderthals, and are our ancestors, had larger brains than Neanderthals.

Our ancestors were smarter than us, but that made society less controllable by overlords, and decreased societies' ability to wage war, as one potential reason for this decline in intelligence.

"... if we ceased to evolve significantly as a species..."

This is not the case. Evolutionary pressures remain in effect, they just vary continuously, and we don't necessarily know what they are. It is also not generally grasped that sometimes evolution happens in bulk, when cataclysm strikes. There is a tension between gradualist forces and catastrophic forces. Long term trends have effects that are suddenly countered, strengthened, or ignored by sudden and dramatic events like pandemics, geological, or political upheavals.

In biology, population spikes are a well noted phenomenon. Populations just don't rise exponentially to a plateau, and then remain at that higher level. When there's an exponential rise, there is inevitably an existential plummet. I sadly am confident this is something humanity will - again - experience, given our dramatic increase.

Genetic engineering and technology will present new evolutionary forces, and much of how that will impact humanity and life itself remains unclear to me. Once we escape Earth's corral, the limitless potential diversity of life will be unleashed completely, and wonders will never cease.

But, first we have to break free.

Thanks!

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Do you believe that the intelligences and abilities of the ancients are superior to moderns? Even in Genesis, humans who lived before Noah's Flood were closer to God and lived to hundreds.

When God's sons married human daughters and fallen descendants were born, God cursed that human life would be less than 100 years old.

Gobekli Tepe may have been born before the Sumerian civilization. In Genesis, people descended from the mountains after Noah's Flood built a tower of Babel on the plain of Shinar.

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(Edited)

Apparently, Gobekli Tepe was built ~6000 years before Sumer arose. Sumer is the civilization that is claimed to have developed writing, the wheel, and other blessings of civilization. Gobekli Tepe is claimed to have been built by hunter/gatherers. However, Dr. Martin Sweatman has proved that those hunter/gatherers that didn't have the wheel, or writing, knew of the 26,000 year long precession of the equinoxes. I submit that without written records, and mathematics, it's impossible to have that understanding of astronomy.

I do believe humans 40kya were smarter than us, because the skulls we have found from that time held larger brains than ours do. Whether that makes them superior to us or not is dependent on how you define superior. I think that all else being equal, being smarter is better.

But, I have proved many times that smart people can do really dumb things. Superiority depends on a lot more than raw intelligence. What you do with what intelligence you have is far more important than what you have to do it with.

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Is Gobekli Tepe a symbol of the zodiac? The claim that Gobekli Tepe was built according to the constellation is interesting. What is the basis for the claim that the future of mankind was predicted by Gobekli Tepe?

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(Edited)

Gobekli Tepe contains stelae, or pillars, on which zodiacal figures are carved. The zodiacal figures on Pillar 43 comprise a date that corresponds to the impact that began the Younger Dryas. That impact, and the catastrophic consequences, are almost certainly the reason Gobekli Tepe was built and preserved by burying it deliberately. It's likely a warning to whoever dug up Gobekli Tepe, and that's us.

" What is the basis for the claim that the future of mankind was predicted by Gobekli Tepe?"

No one has made such a claim to my knowledge. I speculated, not claimed, that the astronomical information communicated by the builders of Gobekli Tepe might contain such information, if their astronomical understanding was nominal for the purpose.

We have just discovered they knew of the precession of the equinoxes, which we did not believe they knew until Sweatman showed they did. It's likely they knew more that we are not yet aware they knew, and if they had orbital mechanics and precise information regarding other cometary fragments like Encke, such predictions would be possible. Given the harsh conditions pertaining at the time, in that place, the enormous effort undertaken to build and preserve that knowledge was undertaken for what they considered very good reasons. If they could provide specific threat warnings, I'm sure they did.

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