Prehistoric Astronomy and the Younger Dryas Catastrophe?

Below article in Spanish. On International Meteorite Day this coming Thursday, official report on a 12,800 meteorite strike, the first discovery of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere at the Pilauco site in Chile, that caused the extinction of the large mammals of that era via the worldwide impact on climate.

http://www.soychile.cl/Osorno/Sociedad/2016/06/24/401699/Impacto-Descubren-evidencias-de-un-meteorito-en-Osorno-que-explicaria-extincion-de-megafauna.aspx
 
Re: 30 June 2016-official report on extinction causing 12,800 meteor strike in Chile

This is not the first evidence of the younger dryas imapact in the southern hemisphere, I hope these geologists will connect the dots with other research done in the northern hemisphere. For instance, there is this abstract from an AGU meeting fro last year:

NH11A-1882
Paleomagnetism and Mineralogy of Unusual Silicate Glasses and Baked Soils on the Surface of the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile: A Major Airburst Impact ~12ka ago?.
Unusual silicate glasses were found in northern Chile in one of the driest place on earth, the Atacama Desert. The scoria-type melted rocks are littered on the ground at several localities distributed along a longitudinal band of about 50km. The silicate glasses have a stable natural remanent magnetization carried by fine-grained magnetite and acquired during cooling. At one locality, fine-grained overbank sediments were heated to form a 10 to 20 cm-thick layer of brick-type samples. Magnetic experiments on oriented samples demonstrate that the baked clays record a thermoremanent magnetization acquired in situ above 600°C down to more than 10cm depth and cooled under a normal polarity geomagnetic field with a paleointensity of 40µT. In some samples of the silicate glass, large grains of iron sulphides (troilite) are found in the glass matrix with numerous droplets of native iron, iron sulphides and iron phosphides indicating high temperature and strong redox conditions during melting. The paleomagnetic record of the baked clays and the unusual mineralogy of the silicate glasses indicate a formation mainly by in situ high temperature radiation. Paleomagnetic experiments and chemical analyses indicate that the silicate glasses are not fulgurite type rocks due to lightning events, nor volcanic glasses or even metallurgical slags related to mining activity. The existence of a well-developped baked clay layer indicates that the silicate glasses are not impact-related ejectas. The field, paleomagnetic and mineralogical observations support evidence for a thermal event likely related to a major airburst. The youngest calibrated 14C age on a charcoal sample closely associated with the glass indicates that the thermal event occurred around 12 to 13 ka BP. The good conservation of the surface effects of this thermal event in the Atacama Desert could provide a good opportunity to further estimate the threats posed by large asteroid airbursts.


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And another one from a pay-walled paper:

Recent Developments in the Analysis of the Black Mat Layer and Cosmic Impact at 12.8 ka
Recent analyses of sediment samples from “black mat” sites in South America and Europe support previous interpretations of an ET impact event that reversed the Late Glacial demise of LGM ice during the Bølling Allerød warming, resulting in a resurgence of ice termed the Younger Dryas (YD) cooling episode. The breakup or impact of a cosmic vehicle at the YD boundary coincides with the onset of a 1-kyr long interval of glacial resurgence, one of the most studied events of the Late Pleistocene. New analytical databases reveal a corpus of data indicating that the cosmic impact was a real event, most possibly a cosmic airburst from Earth's encounter with the Taurid Complex comet or unknown asteroid, an event that led to cosmic fragments exploding interhemispherically over widely dispersed areas, including the northern Andes of Venezuela and the Alps on the Italian/French frontier. While the databases in the two areas differ somewhat, the overall interpretation is that microtextural evidence in weathering rinds and in sands of associated paleosols and glaciofluvial deposits carry undeniable attributes of melted glassy carbon and Fe spherules, planar deformation features, shock-melted and contorted quartz, occasional transition and platinum metals, and brecciated and impacted minerals of diverse lithologies. In concert with other black mat localities in the Western USA, the Netherlands, coastal France, Syria, Central Asia, Peru, Argentina and Mexico, it appears that a widespread cosmic impact by an asteroid or comet is responsible for deposition of the black mat at the onset of the YD glacial event. Whether or not the impact caused a 1-kyr interval of glacial climate depends upon whether or not the Earth had multiple centuries-long episodic encounters with the Taurid Complex or asteroid remnants; impact-related changes in microclimates sustained climatic forcing sufficient to maintain positive mass balances in the reformed ice; and/or inertia in the Atlantic thermohaline circulation system persisted for 1 kyr.
 
One of the most fascinating archaeological sites is Gobekli Tepe in Anatolia.

After DECODING GÖBEKLI TEPE WITH ARCHAEOASTRONOMY: WHAT DOES THE FOX SAY? (read here: Datestamp: World's oldest monument memorializes Younger Dryas comet impact - The Cosmic Tusk), author Martin B. Sweatman from the University of Edinburgh published another hypothesis on the level of astronomical representation in prehistoric art from different sites:
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1806/1806.00046.pdf

We have defined a zodiac that is consistent with the Lascaux Shaft Scene, Çatalhöyük shrines and Göbekli Tepe using precession of the equinoxes.
When we use it to work out the date of the Lascaux Shaft Scene, we find it is 15,150 BC to within 200 years, which agrees with proposed dates for the paintings at Lascaux. In addition, the wounded bull at Lascaux describes the position of maximum intensity of the Taurids when Lascaux was occupied.
When we use it to work out a date range for when Çatalhöyük was occupied, we find it is 7,400–6,500 BC, which agrees with the main occupation phase of
Çatalhöyük.
And, when we use it to work out the date of the Vulture Stone at Göbekli Tepe, we find it is 10,950 BC to within 250 years, which agrees with the known date of the Younger Dryas event. Moreover, we also find that Pillar 2 at Göbekli Tepe describes the path of the radiant of the Taurid meteor stream when Göbekli Tepe was occupied, and Pillar 18 describes the position of the maximum intensity of the Taurids.

The paper has to be read more carefully though, but it could shed some light on some aspects of the past.
 
One of the most fascinating archaeological sites is Gobekli Tepe in Anatolia.

After DECODING GÖBEKLI TEPE WITH ARCHAEOASTRONOMY: WHAT DOES THE FOX SAY? (read here: Datestamp: World's oldest monument memorializes Younger Dryas comet impact - The Cosmic Tusk), author Martin B. Sweatman from the University of Edinburgh published another hypothesis on the level of astronomical representation in prehistoric art from different sites:
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1806/1806.00046.pdf

The paper has to be read more carefully though, but it could shed some light on some aspects of the past.

This is extremely interesting especially when I think back to some points made in the book "Uriel's Machine".
 
And I suspected that Gobekli Tepe was a genetic laboratory used to create new species after Some mass bottle neck extermination. Lol, looks like I was wrong.
 
In the cave painting found astronomical code
В пещерной живописи нашли астрономический код
28 ноября 201812:49 Анатолий Глянцев
xw_1606544.jpg


Already in the Stone Age, people thoroughly studied the starry sky and reflected in works of art not only zodiacal constellations, but also meteor showers and even the effect caused by fluctuations in the earth's axis. And the ancient artists recorded the fall of at least two large meteorites to Earth.

Such conclusions are made in a scientific article, the preprint of which is posted on the website arXiv.org by Martin Sweetman (Martin Sweatman) from the University of Edinburgh and Alistair Coombs from the University of Kent.

"Scientific Detective" began with the work of other authors published in 2012. It stated that about 13 thousand years ago, at the beginning of the late Drias epoch, a large meteorite fell on the Earth, and because of this a noticeable climate change occurred on Earth. However, some experts contested this point of view.

In a paper published in 2017, Sweetman, in collaboration with another scientist, presented his interpretation of images on stone 43 from Gobekli-Tepe complex in present-day Turkey. The authors concluded that this megalith is a kind of monument to the fall of the mentioned meteorite. On such an idea they were led, in particular, by a very good coincidence of the date of creation of this artifact and the time of the cataclysm.

In the current study, the same stone 43 served as the key to the astronomical puzzle. The authors directly compare it with the Rosetta Stone, which, as we know, helped to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs due to the fact that the same text was written on it by the letter of the country of the pharaohs and on the ancient Greek, well-known to historians.

Scientists have paid attention to the mutual arrangement of images on stone 43, stone 18 and stone 2. In their opinion, it reproduces the mutual arrangement of the twelve constellations of the then zodiac, which was somewhat different from the current one. Recall that the zodiac refers to the constellations through which the Sun, Moon and planets pass in their annual visible movement across the sky.

Some of the constellations are even marked the same way as now. For example, the constellation Scorpio corresponds to scorpion, and the constellation Wolf is a wolf (or a dog, since it is difficult to distinguish between these animals in the performance of ancient artists). Libra corresponds to the image of a duck (or goose), Virgo - a bear, and so on.

In addition, on stone 2, the authors saw an image of the meteor shower taurids, also oriented relative to the constellations in due course.

According to statistical calculations of scientists, the probability that all this is a coincidence is 1 to 300 thousand, and taking into account the same images on other megaliths, it is 1 to 10 million.

The same system of depicting constellations using animals is also found by authors on other monuments, including such famous ones as Chatal-Hüyuk (7000 BC), Lasco (15000 BC) and Altamira (14000 BC) . Researchers have spotted these same motifs even in one of the oldest known sculptures — the famous humane lévée from Holenstein (34,000 years BC).

Although these samples of ancient art were created, undoubtedly, by different cultures, scientists believe that they all reflect the knowledge of the starry sky.

Moreover, studying some artifacts, the researchers came to the conclusion that already in the Stone Age, people knew about the preceding equinox. This is the name of the slow offset of the equinox from year to year. As we now know, it is caused by the precession of the earth's axis and repeats with a period of about 26 thousand years. Earlier, the discovery of the preface of the equinox was attributed to the ancient Greek scholar Hipparchus.
The authors suggest that people with such accurate knowledge of astronomy could be skilled navigators. This fact is indirectly confirmed by some data on ancient migrations.

In addition, scientists have concluded that the famous images from Lascaux, which for a long time were considered the oldest known drawings (now this status is already disputed), reflect the fact of the fall of another large meteorite about 17 thousand years ago. Traces of this event are preserved in the ice of Greenland.

"Early cave art shows that people thoroughly became acquainted with the night sky during the last ice age. In intellectual terms, they hardly differed from ours today," says Sweetman.

The ideas expressed by the authors are tempting, but, of course, must be verified by independent experts. Recall that the article of the Sweetman Group is still only a preprint, but it has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Athens Journal of History.

We add that earlier "Vesti.Nauka" (nauka.vesti.ru) wrote that the Australian Aborigines could know about variable stars.
 
I had started reading, but stopped because I lost interest at the time, Graham Hancock's book 'Magicians of the Gods.' In it he goes into some detail about discoveries at Gobekli Tepe and his theories about it. Maybe I will pick it up again.
 
And I suspected that Gobekli Tepe was a genetic laboratory used to create new species after Some mass bottle neck extermination. Lol, looks like I was wrong.


Maybe not so far off though Meager1 ?

Currently in the middle of a little book called 'Point of Origin - Gobekli Tepe and the Spiritual Matrix for the World’s Cosmologies' by Laird Scranton and as Laura mentioned my first thought was the similarities to 'Uriels Machine' as to Stonehenge and the education of Enoch.

Scranton incorporating much in the way of symbolism and etymological similarities between other high (esoteric) cultures - which is quite illuminating and appears to be thanks to his grounding in Velikovsky and other works on the Dogon etc.

From the blurb-

''Revealing the existence of a long-forgotten primal culture and the world’s first center of higher learning, Laird Scranton shows how the sophisticated complex at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey is the definitive point of origin from which all the great civilizations of the past inherited their cosmology, esoteric teachings, and civilizing skills, such as agriculture, metallurgy, and stone masonry, fully developed.''
 
And finally it is published:

Published: 13 March 2019
Sedimentary record from Patagonia, southern Chile supports cosmic-impact triggering of biomass burning, climate change, and megafaunal extinctions at 12.8 ka
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-38089-y

Abstract

The Younger Dryas (YD) impact hypothesis posits that fragments of a large, disintegrating asteroid/comet struck North America, South America, Europe, and western Asia ~12,800 years ago. Multiple airbursts/impacts produced the YD boundary layer (YDB), depositing peak concentrations of platinum, high-temperature spherules, meltglass, and nanodiamonds, forming an isochronous datum at >50 sites across ~50 million km² of Earth’s surface. This proposed event triggered extensive biomass burning, brief impact winter, YD climate change, and contributed to extinctions of late Pleistocene megafauna. In the most extensive investigation south of the equator, we report on a ~12,800-year-old sequence at Pilauco, Chile (~40°S), that exhibits peak YD boundary concentrations of platinum, gold, high-temperature iron- and chromium-rich spherules, and native iron particles rarely found in nature. A major peak in charcoal abundance marks an intense biomass-burning episode, synchronous with dramatic changes in vegetation, including a high-disturbance regime, seasonality in precipitation, and warmer conditions. This is anti-phased with northern-hemispheric cooling at the YD onset, whose rapidity suggests atmospheric linkage. The sudden disappearance of megafaunal remains and dung fungi in the YDB layer at Pilauco correlates with megafaunal extinctions across the Americas. The Pilauco record appears consistent with YDB impact evidence found at sites on four continents.


In summary, evidence has been found in the Pilauco section that is similar to that found at >50 YDB sites on four continents. This is the first time that extensive YDB evidence has been found at high latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere. The evidence reported in this study appears consistent with the proposed effects of a YDB cosmic impact event that affected both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
 
It looks like shortly after this thread, Sweatman published a book. 'The Tusk' gave a glowing review of it:


Before I purchased the book, I presumed it would focus overwhelmingly on the pattern matching exercise and what it revealed, and would only reference the work of the Younger Dryas Boundary publishing team as needed. But Sweatman surprised me, and included a well-researched and desperately needed examination and comparison of evidence in the last decade’s YDB publishing battle, while also placing that shameful affair within the larger centennial context of Catastrophism versus Gradualism.

This is perhaps what is most impressive aspect to me personally, the book not only makes a shocking claim (based on empirical evidence) but expertly clarifies the larger ideological battle which haunts the empirical evidence of ancient catastrophes.

This reviewer cannot say that Martin’s empirical approach is not flawed in some unapparent way. At times my mathematically feeble mind strains to fully “grok” his methodology. The Tusk must be forgiven then if I mix my enthusiastic endorsement for Prehistory Decoded with some humility, and certainly an inability to fully “proof” his work.

But the Tusk has read a lot of ‘kooky books’ through the years, and this ain’t one. Kooky books run free with speculation and make little effort to explicitly check their approach against scientific method or self reference for potential flaws. Prehistory Decoded distinguishes itself from this plentiful genre, and goes to great pains at each and every step of analysis to point out weaknesses, fairly address them, and invite criticism. In fact, the book includes a number of references — and explicit pledges of fealty — to the Scientific Method.

I suspect others readers will get the same sense that I did, that Dr. Sweatman is an extraordinarily intelligent and sincere fellow who just happened to have the right intellectual mix, and work ethic, to make an unexpected and profound discovery as a newcomer to a controversy he did not invite.

Unlike many others, particularly those directly credentialed, he was unwilling to relegate this provocative art to the world of “mystery,” or patronize ancient artists’ mighty efforts as campfire fun or “mysterious” and “unknowable” ritual. He treats our ancestors with the artistic and intellectual respect they deserve. By paying respect, he was rewarded with profound insight and managed to communicate his discovery in a manner which is humble and appropriate, yet sublime.

Here's the book: Prehistory Decoded: Martin Sweatman: 9781789016383: Amazon.com: Books
 
The book looks promising. Here is the presentation on the amazon link:

Nearly 13,000 years ago millions of people and animals were wiped out, and the world plunged abruptly into a new ice-age. It was more than a thousand years before the climate, and mankind, recovered.

The people of Gobekli Tepe in present-day southern Turkey, whose ancestors witnessed this catastrophe, built a megalithic monument formed of many hammer-shaped pillars decorated with symbols as a memorial to this terrible event. Before long, they also invented agriculture, and their new farming culture spread rapidly across the continent, signalling the arrival of civilisation.

Before abandoning Gobekli Tepe thousands of years later, they covered it completely with rubble to preserve the greatest and most important story ever told for future generations. Archaeological excavations began at the site in 1994, and we are now able to read their story, more amazing than any Hollywood plot, again for the first time in over 10,000 years. It is a story of survival and resurgence that allows one of the world's greatest scientific puzzles - the meaning of ancient artworks, from the 40,000 year-old Lion-man figurine of Hohlenstein-Stadel cave in Germany to the Great Sphinx of Giza - to be solved.

We now know what happened to these people. It probably had happened many times before and since, and it could happen again, to us.
The conventional view of prehistory is a sham; we have been duped by centuries of misguided scholarship. The world is actually a much more dangerous place than we have been led to believe. The old myths and legends, of cataclysm and conflagration, are surprisingly accurate.

We know this because, at last, we can read an extremely ancient code assumed by scholars to be nothing more than depictions of wild animals. A code hiding in plain sight that reveals we have hardly changed in 40,000 years. A code that changes everything.

Could be an interesting book indeed.

Note: The author has a personal blog here: Prehistory Decoded
 
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