NAZCA's Lost City of the line-builders: Cahuachi

reply to post by SLAYER69

Maybe it depends on whether or not it was they who traveled, and whether or not it was a collective memory, or a single memory. Could they have been introduced to such by travelers to the area? Or could we really go out on a limb, and say, at one time those animals WERE native to the area? Although the last one creates a conundrum all by itself, doesn't it?

I have got to get back to researching this stuff more often. I've been so involved in other projects, and business, the past few years, I feel like a total noob in this area these days. But I love this stuff, and have a passion for it.

Originally posted by SLAYER69
post by Klassified

 

I question just how accurately these sites are dated? We seem to have a conflict between two sciences here. On the one hand we have one telling us when the last of the ice melt off occurred then we find temples and other sites from a much more recent period showing signs of massive flooding.

Now which is it?

13,000 B.C. or 3,500 B.C.

Here is an image that I've always found a bit puzzling. It's a temple complex on the Western side of the range at a site known as Caral Supe which is now recognized as the oldest in Peru and who the builders were Ancient Egypt's contemporaries. Notice how in the image the top left corner shows what appears to be damage from a massive flood slicing off or eroding away a section?

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/806948a8a0c4.jpg[/atsimg]

It's much more noticeable to those who do a Google Earth view. Those who do look it up will be able to easily follow that swath of flooding destruction back up to the Andes

Which by the way at the same locations and others nearby we also find what appear to be ancient megalithic standing stones from a much earlier period. I wonder if there were a few periods of development from various cultures and as stated earlier those who came later utilized earlier much much older sites...?

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/bcd3c8d8a156.jpg[/atsimg]

edit on 15-12-2012 by SLAYER69 because: (no reason given)

Hey slayer,
With respext to the flood damage, in arid regions at the base of large mountains catastrophic localized flooding
While not regular it is not unheard of. The perfect scenario is warm subtropical storm dumping warm rain on a heavy winter snow pack, can cause a once in 500 yr flood with out wide spread regional flooding. It happens here in central cal, not infrequently, we get most of our snow fall in late winter ,Jan- Feb. We can have as much as 30-40 feet of snow in the higher elevations. Now as spring approaches we can get in march subtropical storms, called the pineapple express, that bring lots of warm rain into the mountains. Theses types of storms are very high energy but localized. So in just a couple of days of rain you can see six months worth of run off.
So a small spring storm on top of a good snow pack can cause localized flooding of a catastrophic nature
No real need for glaciers and ice dams or going back to the ice age to find the flood. Besides surface traces of flooding at the end of the ice age would be long erased by know.
Also I think I have found a link between your previous threads on the megalith builders and ancient maritime cultures of the pacific and those standing stones.
It involves the spondylus trade, spondylus is an oyster,



en.m.wikipedia.org...
Spondylus was traded by the people of coastal ecuador to the people of further south along the coast to Peru.
Spondylus trade is also associated with the obsidian trade in the eastern med. The obsidian trade in the med is also associated with the maritime traders the beaker folk. The beaker folk are associated with Mediterranean megaliths and the beaker culture replaces earlier British cultures and unified Britain around the time of the starting of the henges.
Beaker pottery is very similar to the pottery of the lapita people of melanesia.
A lapita pot

A bell beaker

The lapita people were also obsidian traders and buried thier dead in large burial urns as did the Urnfield culture of Europe, which was a precursor to the beaker culture.
The lapita made coil built sand tempered pottery as did the ecuadorians that traded Spondylus shells with the Peruvians that erected that standing stone.

reply to post by punkinworks10

Great post. I guess my question would still be, is there enough evidence of just one of the scenarios presented in this thread in the immediate and surrounding areas to get a definitive answer? And a close second, would be: Are they even looking at more than scenario, or are they just looking to confirm the one they like the best.

Not that I expect any of us to know the answer to those questions, but it would be nice to think they're looking at all the possibilities.

reply to post by SLAYER69

Slayer, now I have a question for you.

What is the possibility that decay rates are inconsistent throughout history, and also geographically? Wouldn't erratic decay rates make radiocarbon dating near useless unless we could test objects we know the age of in different areas of the planet, at different times against a standard? I'm sure you've thought of this, or read something on it, but I'm curious of your take on it.

It seems to me, decay rates could fluctuate historically for any number of reasons.

Originally posted by Druscilla

Thank you again for another awesome thread Slayer!
Nazca!

S + F to you!

Ditto. Always a favorite poster of mine.


I would love a mind like yours to scrub some ideas from a mind like mine. I'm close. To 'getting it' - lol. Thanks for making us think... again.

reply to post by Klassified


Actually, variations in the decay rate of radioactive materials has been found to be caused by the sun. Although, I can't remember at the moment if dating techniques such as radiocarbon have been modified to reflect this fact.

Mysteriously , Solar Activity Found to Influence Behavior of Radioactive Materials On Earth.

Plenty more articles about it with a quick google search.

reply to post by Klassified


Here you go a published study about c14 dating refinements.

The carbon clock is getting reset. Climate records from a Japanese lake are set to improve the accuracy of the dating technique, which could help to shed light on archaeological mysteries such as why Neanderthals became extinct.

Carbon dating is used to work out the age of organic material — in effect, any living thing. The technique hinges on carbon-14, a radioactive isotope of the element that, unlike other more stable forms of carbon, decays away at a steady rate. Organisms capture a certain amount of carbon-14 from the atmosphere when they are alive. By measuring the ratio of the radio isotope to non-radioactive carbon, the amount of carbon-14 decay can be worked out, thereby giving an age for the specimen in question.

But that assumes that the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere was constant — any variation would speed up or slow down the clock. The clock was initially calibrated by dating objects of known age such as Egyptian mummies and bread from Pompeii; work that won Willard Libby the 1960 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. But even he “realized that there probably would be variation”, says Christopher Bronk Ramsey, a geochronologist at the University of Oxford, UK, who led the latest work, published today in Science 1 . Various geologic, atmospheric and solar processes can influence atmospheric carbon-14 levels.

And

Bronk Ramsey’s team aimed to fill this gap by using sediment from bed of Lake Suigetsu, west of Tokyo. Two distinct sediment layers have formed in the lake every summer and winter over tens of thousands of years. The researchers collected roughly 70-metre core samples from the lake and painstakingly counted the layers to come up with a direct record stretching back 52,000 years. Preserved leaves in the cores — “they look fresh as if they’ve fallen very recently”, Bronk Ramsey says — yielded 651 carbon dates that could be compared to the calendar dates of the sediment they were found in.

www.nature.com...
So they can compare the c14 levels in leaves preserved in the mud cores to those of other finds and refine the dating based on the knowm levels and their positioning of the layers of the lake sediments.

reply to post by punkinworks10


Found another cultural similarity between the Paracas culture and the lapita. Lapita burial practices were varied, but both lapita and paracas used vertical pit burials, with the remains wrapped in textiles and the skulls and other bones removed. They also both practiced skull elongation.

reply to post by Mad Simian


punkinworks10

Thanks guys, that's what I was looking for. I'm just going to have to put some other stuff aside, and read up on this, and a few other issues I have with the dating of archaeological sites.

Very interesting stuff indeed.
One of the prevailing theories on the lines was that they marked places people could find sources of underground water. It seemed to make sense considering how dry the area was. But considering this info, that idea is blown out of the water for two reasons. 1. When this stuff was built there was more water. 2. I'd say there's a good chance under ground water can be found all over the place there.

Tibet and the Himalayas region in general has a similar ecological issue, but at an earlier stage.

Glacial meltwater is filling up lakes up in the mountains, but many of those lakes aren't all that stable. Some of them will only get so full before the natural dam breaks somehow.

The results will play out over the very long term: a period with multiple massive, sudden floods and landslides over the course of a few centuries or millenia, and all of it happening 'up in the mountains.'

Originally posted by JayinAR
One of the prevailing theories on the lines was that they marked places people could find sources of underground water. It seemed to make sense considering how dry the area was. But considering this info, that idea is blown out of the water for two reasons. 1. When this stuff was built there was more water. 2. I'd say there's a good chance under ground water can be found all over the place there.

It depends on how old the lines are. If they were many thousands of years old, there would be more above ground water and they wouldn't be needed. I don't think they are that old though.

At least one academic has even decoded the shapes somewhat:

www.archaeologydaily.com...

a high percentage of potable water of the mountain chain moves through underground filtrations and that the pre-Hispanic population knew perfectly the cartography of water. He said that lines like the ones in Nasca would be "a language to communicate where underground wells and aqueducts are located".

Johnson gave each figure a meaning: the trapezoids always point to a well. The circles to a place where the fountain is located. And the complex figures as well. For example, the hummingbird points to a giant well with its beak.

So whatever else they may have been for/about, they really did have plenty to do with water.

reply to post by 11andrew34


It's funny you mention them.

I've always felt some sort of odd familiarity between the peoples of the Andes and Tibetans.

Brilliant thread again Slayer. I know so little (aside from the basics) about South American cultures that i genuinely love any new info. I have to say though, in a very bizarre sense it seems so "alien" to what i know from Europe!

Regarding the differing dates for melt offs though, that is to be expected and is actually what the science supports - different areas at different times of history. Given the geology of the area, i wouldn't be that amazed to find a major melt off in the recent past (geologically). For example, any huge glacier melt off could have been caused by volcanic or earthquake activity as opposed to rising temperatures (which you would expect to fit somewhere in the climate models range, even though they are being constantly updated).

I have often thought in the past that Nazca doesn't necessarily have to have any significant purpose other than man proving they can. For example a local ruler develops a whim to have things of meaning carved into the landscape. History is full of mankind doing pointless things just because we can. In point of fact, people looking for sense and reasoning behind many things from history are often left disappointed!

Wow! Interesting . . .

Originally posted by SLAYER69
reply to post by 11andrew34

 

It's funny you mention them.

I've always felt some sort of odd familiarity between the peoples of the Andes and Tibetans.

edit on 17-12-2012 by SLAYER69 because: (no reason given)

Woah.

Sorry, but now that you posted that, and I'm thinking about it, it seems the same to me.

Might not have any thing to do with anything, but still that's just spooky.

Keep up the good work mate. I enjoyed it.

Something I have been pondering is how resistant these buildings are to earthquakes.
They were dry stone built,meaning without mortar.
Then the builders went poof! Into the night,they are gone.
Not only the Incas,not only the Mayans,but other cultures.
And then you have the dark ages in Europe at approximately the same time,if I'm wrong,let me know.
Was this a global collapse of humanity?
And if so,what caused it at their peak ?
I should start a thread on it,but not yet.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Thanks for sending the thread my way Slayer! As usual you did a superb job of laying down the information, and te Nazca lines have always fascinated me with the effort and skill they would have taken to primitive man. Not jumping on the aliens bandwagon; just stating. Great job!



S+F

reply to post by SLAYER69


I am really foggy on this as it has been 10 years since I looked into it.

But the idea that I have held is that it may be possible that there was a large flood, maybe caused by impact or just caused by water rushing in from the ocean.

There were stepped terraces going up the sides of mountains, with the steps on the tops being farmed the more recently near Tihuanaco.

The area is definitely interesting. I wish I was in a state of mind right now to give more of my thoughts on the matter. Perhaps I can come back by later when that state of mind is present.

reply to post by kdog1982


This area had mud brick construction the other sites are tightly interlocked blocks that some believe are either "Alien" construction or the remnants of a lost ancient civilization that preceded the Incas. [Unrelated to this site]

Which ever one chooses to believe or speculated upon the site is still very interesting.