
Out-of-Place Artifact - diodorus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-place_artifact
======
singularity2001
I was hoping for a list of real, scientifically accepted out of place
artifacts, like the Anau seal. Or Göbekli Tepe.

~~~
8bitsrule
Some of the stuff in the books of Charles Fort (1874-1932; kept and published
notes about the unusual) has been accepted. Looks like the magazine is still
published.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fort#Fortean_phenomena](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fort#Fortean_phenomena)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortean_Times](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortean_Times)

Original edition of 'Book of the Damned':

[https://archive.org/details/bookofdamnedbych00fortrich/page/...](https://archive.org/details/bookofdamnedbych00fortrich/page/n9)

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YeGoblynQueenne
>> Over 20,000 objects were found over a 15-year period at the Goddard Site in
Brooklin, Maine. The sole non-Native artifact was the coin.[8]

By frequentist assumptions and given this evidence, the probability that
Vikings visited the Americas before Columbus is 0.00005. We can therefore
safely conclude that the Vikings never visited the Americas before Columbus.

(er, joke)

~~~
jngreenlee
Post this on twitter and @nntaleb will correct you!

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EdwardDiego
What about the fact that the reed boats on Lake Titicaca look like the reed
boats Ancient Egyptians used to make? Huh? Huh?!

My favourite contentious potential sign of cultural contact is the extensive
usage of sweet potato (native to South America) in the Polynesian Triangle.
One of the signs that convinced Thor Heyerdahl to launch the Kontiki
expedition, but he assumed (for various reasons) that contact must've gone
South America -> Polynesia - things like the prevailing currents and winds
being east to west.

However, given what we know of eastward Polynesian expansion, that it tended
to occur during El Ninos when the currents and winds change in the Pacific, I
find it more probable that the seafaring Polynesians who settled some of the
most remote islands in the world, travelled to South America and then back
again.

~~~
FR10
Yes there’s a theory that states that one of the Incas ”Tupac Yupanqui” is
believed to have gone to the Polynesia around 1465 with boats and 20 000 crew
members

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mc32
This is so weird: on the one hand some of these crackpot theories think some
things are too advanced (Antikythera dev), other times they want think people
were more advanced than known evidence suggest (Baghdad battery). So they are
all over the place, but consistent in thinking modern understanding is wrong.

~~~
droithomme
A sophisticated mechanical astronomical computer is no less implausible in
that time period than a battery for electroplating. Neither require aliens.

The Incas did electroplating. We even have the remnant electroplated
artifacts. Did the Incas invent batteries for electroplating first or was it
the Greeks? We don't know yet. If Greek electroplated items are found someday
then we'll be able to say they did it first.

~~~
8bitsrule
And yet Antikythera sat gathering dust for 50 years (until Price) because
noone knew what to make of it ... "most scholars considered the device to be
prochronistic..." (WP)

After Price spelled it out, it still took decades for enough scholars to die -
and the tech to understand it became available - only then it became more
plausible ...

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makz
In the same vein of this if you like crackpot theories, research Tartaria and
mud floods.

~~~
twic
If floods and mud are your thing, check out zermatism:

[http://unurthed.com/2007/12/23/szukalskis-science-of-
zermati...](http://unurthed.com/2007/12/23/szukalskis-science-of-zermatism/)

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wumms
Couldn't the Maine Penny just have been transported in an animals stomach?

~~~
PhasmaFelis
That seems a lot less likely than either of the current hypotheses (it was
carried there directly by Norse explorers vs. it was traded from one group to
another across the distance).

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oleganza
I recommend scrolling down to Babylonokia.

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arbitrage
> The term is used largely by cryptozoologists, proponents of ancient
> astronaut theories, young Earth creationists, and paranormal enthusiasts.

~~~
JadeNB
What's the significance of this line?

~~~
sfkdjf9j3j
It's not a scientific concept, it's a term used by the aliens-built-the-
pyramids crowd.

~~~
optimalsolver
The aliens didn't build the pyramids, they merely advised the human architects
by, e.g., imparting knowledge of geometry and metallurgy.

~~~
JJMcJ
We see evidence of increasing ability to build larger and larger pyramids over
time in Egypt.

The construction method is pretty well known by now, big ramps of gravel to
roll/push stones up. Gravel spread around, contruction times vs. number of
people on site, well known.

Another example a group of university students hauled a Stonehenge sized rock
from a likely quarry to Stonehenge site in a couple of weeks.

We forget what human labor can do.

~~~
irrational
>We see evidence of increasing ability to build larger and larger pyramids
over time in Egypt.

That's not totally true, is it? The first pyramid was Djoser's pyramid in
saqqara in about 2650BC. The first true pyramid was build around 2590BC
(around 60 years later). The largest and greatest of the pyramids was built
around 2570BC (only about 80 years after the first pyramid). Things really
went downhill from there, but the Egyptian civilization lasted for another
3000 years.

~~~
xenadu02
The point is they clearly perfected their techniques over time. We have
evidence of failures and mistakes too.

There is nothing about the ancient pyramids that lies beyond human capability.
There are plenty of videos on youtube of 1-4 people moving 15-ton stone blocks
around.

Occam's razor: the simplest explanation is humans built the pyramids and no
aliens were involved.

~~~
ianai
OT, but more and more I wonder how prevalent fossil fuels are. We wonder at
just how frequent life occurs. But fossil fuels have basically catapulted us
in energy production over a very short time.

