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NASA baffled by structures in Kazakhstan

Posted by $ nickursis 9 years, 9 months ago to Science
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Hmmm..you are hunting and finding food, and you had time to build monster sized geoglyphs as a hobby? This is interesting...
SOURCE URL: http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-baffled-by-8000-year-old-structures-in-kazakhstan-2015-11

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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 9 months ago
    Jane Jacobs wrote The Economy of Cities. Her thesis overturned the traditional theory that hunters settled down to be pastoralists who settled down to be farmers who formed the first cities. Jacobs theorized that successful hunters met at traditional campsites that became the first cities. Agriculture was a consequence of the cities. Where cities failed from war or other causes, the marginal peoples were cut loose from the missing center and became pastoralists chasing migratory herds.

    Thus, successful hunters, enjoying the benefits of trade in their proto-urban campsites had plenty of time and ability to create those structures and others like them.

    Also, note that 8000 years ago was 6000 BCE, a time when the Proto-Indo-European language was so successful that its speakers were ranging wide and diverging. These structures speak to that kind of intellectual ferment. And ferment it was, as beer and wine also date from that time.
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    • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 9 months ago
      She cannot explain how so many huge and heavy structures were put into place especially in Central and South America, when we find it extremely difficult to move and alter them with modern equipment.
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      • Posted by $ nickursis 9 years, 9 months ago
        That was one of the things I have always wondered about. Erik Von Daniken brought that up with Chariots, and Tiahuanaco as well, the work on the stones rivals anything we can do today, as well as having no evidence for using blunt instruments to chisel it. That is one thing that drives the whole debate.It is an interesting subject, and Tues night I saw a show where they basically did the political smear job on EVD , complete with a bevy of so called experts who poo-pooed him. I do not like to take a particular stand and say "thats it" but I am open to debate as no one has a good answer for all this stuff, on either side. It is just funny NASA is publicly asking, when they usually pontificate.
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    • Posted by $ jlc 9 years, 9 months ago
      Excellent points, Mike. The Indo-European migration stretched from China to Ireland, taking its heroic culture, secondary animal products, and wheeled vehicles with it. Insofar as extra time is concerned, modern hunter-gatherer tribes (more primitive than the PIE civilization) spend about 20 hours a week gathering food: This would leave plenty of time to make monuments.

      But - Why those monuments? What do they mean? Why was it important to make them, and make them BIG?


      Jim
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      • Posted by slfisher 9 years, 9 months ago
        Men did it?
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        • Posted by $ nickursis 9 years, 9 months ago
          Well, I guess thats the question. Stonehenge and Easter Island come to mind in the real of "Whoo, how do you do that?" Also there is a huge structure under the Pacific by Okinawa, I think, that would have had to have been constructed at least 15K years ago, to account for all the water locked up in ice. They are still exploring that one .
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    • Posted by $ nickursis 9 years, 9 months ago
      Mike, thanks for the feedback. The one major thing I have always wondered with megalithic structures is why, and how, would they spare the time and effort to build such huge things, when they should be out chasing animals, growing food etc. Also, if you look at some of them, the work done (such as at Tiahuanaco in western Bolivia) is of such superior quality, some of which we can barely do today on such a scale. There are also several other sites around the world where there is just such huge sites, and made of 500 ton rocks, that it is hard to imagine how they did this 4000 years ago.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 9 months ago
    There are unexplained ancient structures all over the world besides Kazakhstan. By ancient, I'm talking about thousand of years old, well before humans had the tools or ability to create them, but somehow, they did. Or did they? In Central America there's Puma Punku whose 10 ton+ blocks are cut to such perfectly straight lines that modern equipment is hard pressed to emulate them. There are the famous Nasca Lines in Peru where lines and images of spiders and animals can only be viewed from the air to be understood. All over the Earth there are impossible structures made of stone so big and heavy that special machines made today, would need to be built to move them. There is simply no way that ancients could have built such items with what we know of their technology. Even the Pyramids are a mystery, and the Sphinx, which pre-dates the Pyramids is a conundrum. "There are more things on heaven and earth than are dream't of in your philosophy" said good old Willie Shakespeare.
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  • Posted by $ Susanne 9 years, 9 months ago
    Hunters turned to Agro-economics, then when both overutilization of the land to the point it was totally stripped of nutrients, and climactic conditions rapidly changed for the worse, the crops started to fail... the "monoliths" were raised as appeals to their "deities", when things continued to degrade they turned to living sacrifices (animal, human), and then as even their sacrifices to their deities failed to being the desired results (revitalized land, rainfall, etc.) they turned to the last resort (cannibalism) until the population was no longer sustainable and the people died out. Common recurring theme throughout history.

    That, or prehistoric humanity were all Burners (ref. Burning Man, Black Rock City, NV), and built these huge party grounds to make music, dance naked, practice art, and get wasted.

    The circle of mounds is in a way fascinating as there are 25 mounds in a circle. Maybe there were external markers/structures (as in stone circles throughout northwest Europe) and it was used for marking planting times, seasonal predictors, etc. When you look at Stonehenge (for example) that structure is far larger and far more complex than the actual stone henge... and people are just now starting to decode it.

    My thought was it's part of some sort of religious ritual or belief system that was perhaps as, say, someone traveling today that sees a church (or even a synagogue or mosque) would recognize it for what it is and what it's used for (and in a very basic way, how it is used)....
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    • Posted by $ nickursis 9 years, 9 months ago
      Maybe. They have found a huge number of megaliths in Europe in the last 20-30 years, since satellites became common. Thats a lot of rock moving for people trying to survive. Maybe a government project like FDR did?
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