While Guinness World Records officially lists the Djoser Step pyramid in Egypt as the world’s oldest pyramid (around 2,630 BC), one paper published in October claimed a layer of the Gunung Padang pyramid in Indonesia was constructed as far back as 25,000 BC – though there has since been doubts as to whether the structure was ever man-made at all.
In research led by Danny Hilman Natawidjaja of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, and published in the journal Archaeological Prospection, the academics write that “the pyramid’s core consists
of meticulously sculpted massive andesite lava” and that the “oldest construction” element of the pyramid “likely originated as a natural lava hill before being sculpted and then architecturally enveloped”.
They write: “This study sheds light on advanced masonry skills dating back to the last glacial period. This finding challenges the conventional belief that human civilization and the development of advanced construction techniques emerged only … with the advent of agriculture approximately 11,000 years ago. READ MORE...
Scientists believe they’ve found a window into the dawn of time on Earth, and it’s hidden beneath the Pacific Ocean.
A team led by geophysicist Simon Lamb, of the University of Wellington and scientist Cornel de Ronde, of GNS Science, said the key to our past lies in a remote corner of South Africa and way down on the seafloor off the coast of New Zealand.
So what do these two sites, on opposite sides of the world, have in common?
Writing for The Conversation, the scientists explained that their work began after de Ronde created a new, detailed geological map of an area known as the Barberton Greenstone Belt, which lies in South Africa’s highveld region.
“The geological formations in this region have proved difficult to decipher, despite many attempts,” the pair write. READ MORE...
