Scientists Debunk themselves into a corner

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Are you claiming that Giza hasn't seen any significant rainfall since 12,000 years ago?

It has, in fact, seen significant amounts of rainfall up to about 5,000 years ago. Northern Africa has had periods of significant rainfall during the warmer climate of the Holocene Climatic Optimum. Even the Sahara Desert is thought to have been green back then. It had lakes back then. Similarly, the Gobi Desert is said to have been a forest and northern Mexico is said to have been much greener.

It seems to be neither reasonable nor necessary to claim that the rain patterns ties the age of the structures on Giza to 12,000 years ago.

Last edited by kokopelli on 05 May 2025, 3:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

12,000 years ago, we were still in the Younger Dryas. Farming would have been very difficult during that period, if not impossible. What I have said more than once, it was the much warmer weather of the Holocene Climatic Optimum that enabled our ancestors to abandon a hunter gatherer lifestyle and settle down and start farming.

I don't believe for a second that they were building such structures there during the Younger Dryas.

Out of curiosity, I did some web searches on Gobleke tepe and none of what I found dates it to 12,000 years ago. The end of the Younger Dryas was about 11,700 years ago when the conditions brought about by the warmer weather would be much less harsh than during the Younger Dryas.

So it appears to have been established something like 100 to 200 years after the end of the Younger Dryas and was used for about 2,500 years. Looking at it on Google Maps, it isn't very big. It is hardly a developed settlement. The web sites describe it as more like a temple or other religious site, not a city. At least one web site said that there was no contemporary indications of domesticated animals or plants around it.

Note that the shift from hunter-gatherer to farming would not have taken place overnight.

Its actually true, Despite Egyptian head of Antiquities, Zawi Hawass (who is qualified in nothing) Giza has not experienced significant rainfall causing the weathering erosion on the Giza plateau for 12,000 years.

Hawass is saying prove the erosion is not caused by wind/sand. Robert Schoch is a Professor of geology from Boston University and eminently more qualified than Hawass (who has never done proper archaeology since he's a political appoinment who used his connections in the Egytpian government) on geological weathering and he's confident the weathering is associated with "heavy" rainfall that last happened 12,000 years ago.

Dig/excavate a little deeper (no pun intended). Karehen tepe which is identical in size and complexity to Gobleke tepe and closely nearby is dated to 12000 years ago so falling into the younger Dryas. The dating of Karahan Tepe, along with other sites like Göbekli Tepe, aligns with the timing of the Younger Dryas and the end of the last Ice Age. This has led to the inevitable conclusion the Younger Dryas played a role in the cultural and societal changes that led to the construction of these sites.

Farming would have been feasible in the tropics for an advanced civilisation 12,000 years ago. Not wanting to tackle Nan Madol? I don't blame you, it really shouldn't be there.

So fringe ideas, then?

It might have been feasible in the southern hemisphere, but not to much of any degree in the northern hemisphere. The Younger Dryas is thought to have had far less effect in the southern hemisphere.

I don't get whatever point you are endeavoring to make about Non Madol. It is a Micronesian site that was still occupied until a few hundred years ago, was it not? (For all I know, it might still be occupied today.) Are you trying to just muddy up the water?

As with a lot of stone megaliths it can't be properly dated so it's date us up for grabs and second nobody wants to venture how it was constructed because no culture we know could construct 750,000 tonnes of hard stone in the middle of a tiny pacific island.

I'll take the science from a Professor of Geology from a prestigious University talking about geology over some dude who claims to be an archaeologist parroting other archaeologists none of whom are climate scientists or geologists.

Fringe ideas would include the nonsense that there has been hardly any rainfall there in the last 12,000 years. The evidence shows that northern Africa saw plenty of rainfall up to about 5,000 years ago.

The Sahara Desert, including areas that now form part of Egypt, experienced a major rainy period from roughly 12,000 to 5,000 years ago, with peak rainfall around 9,000 years ago.

The weathering Schoch recognised is from the peak period and before.

In other words, the only rain that matters was before 12,000 years ago during the Younger Dryas. Magically, the rainfall after that doesn't weather anything.

Is that the story you are going to stick with?

I mean I accept there is an error factor there but 9000 years old is still not 5000 years old.

Scientists are usually pretty smart.
I expect one of them spread a drop sheet in the corner before the debunking started.

That's not science though. That's what historians do. Part of why science is the sort of mess it is now is that things that either aren't science have been allowed to pretend to be or things like psychology have been allowed to have super low standards.

Normally, 12,000 years ago might be round-off error from 11,600 or 11,700, but when it comes to climate, there were major changes in that time.

As we warmed up from the latest glaciation period in our current ice age about 14,500 years ago, precipitation increased. But then there was dramatic cooling as a period in the northern hamisphere known as the Younger Dryas began. With this cooling, precipitation naturally decreased in the northern hemisphere. Sure, there may have been some exceptions, but is there any reason at all to believe that Egypt was an exception to these trends?

12,000 years ago, we were still in the Younger Dryas and it was not only cooler, but dryer in the northern hemisphere. This period is estimated to have ended around 11,600 to 11,700 years ago.

At the end of the Younger Dryas, the Holocene began. It warmed up and with the warming, precipitation increased. By about 10,000 years ago, we were in the Holocene Climatic Optimum in which it was notably warmer and wetter than now and that lasted for something like 4,000 to 5,000 years. We are still in the Holocene today, but cooler and dryer than during the Holocene Climatic Optimum.

So 9,000 years ago, it was warmer and wetter until now. By about 5,000 years ago it was cooling back off a bit and was more similar than today.

There is nothing that makes any sense about the idea that Egypt magically got more rainfall during the end of the Younger Dryas. The evidence shows that northern Africa received significantly more rainfall during the Holocene Climatic Optimum.