Introduction and Host Introduction
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Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You are now entering the pseudo-archaeology podcast, a show that uncovers what's fact, what's fake, and what's fun in the crazy world of pseudo-archaeology.
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Hello and welcome to the pseudo-archaeology podcast, episode 117. And I am your host, Dr. Professor Andrew Kinkela Esquire, RPA, archaeology person.
Understanding the Younger Dryas
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And tonight, we are delving deep into the Younger Dryas and the Comet Impact Hypothesis.
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Okay, why pray tell? Am I doing this to myself? Well, the Younger Dryas and the Comet Impact Hypothesis is actually something that comes up all the time.
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in the pseudo archaeology world, I would almost say it's one of the top five stories that a huge portion of pseudo archaeology stories use, or they're based on it, or they use it as like an ending, or they use it as quote unquote proof to stuff they're saying. So
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I approach this podcast with dread as I often do. That's because there are really a lot of twists and turns in this one, you guys, and I hope you can kind of stick with me and I hope I can stick with myself as I go through this because what we're going to find.
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is that when you're talking about something that is labeled the Younger Dryas and the Comet Impact Hypothesis, right there, there's just a ton of stuff going on. You're like, Younger Dryas, what's that? And then, OK, there's a comet in it and maybe there's explosions. It's intrinsically kind of muddled and complicated. So I'm going to have to break this down and kind of parse it out and hopefully it'll ultimately
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make a bit of sense. So what we want to start with opening this total Pandora's box is what is the younger Dryas, right? We won't even bother with all the comment stuff. We'll do that later. What is the younger Dryas itself? Now, I'm being honest with you. When I originally heard about all this,
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I thought Younger Dryas was two scientists with the last name of Younger and the last name of Dryas, but it's not. The Younger Dryas is a time in history. Okay. It's from about 13,000 years ago until about 12,000 years ago. So it's a thousand year block of time.
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And it's called the Younger Dryas because the Dryas is actually a type of flower. It's like a little flowering plant.
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And scientists were a bit surprised when they saw that this plant existed at this certain time because this plant exists in slightly colder temperatures. So they found these and they're like, wait, these aren't supposed to be around. Then they found this through doing ice cores, right? They found pollen from this plant at from the 13,000 to about the 12,000 years ago timeframe.
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What was the big deal? So what? So it's from colder conditions. Well.
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What the Younger Dryas is, is it's a moment where we go into slightly colder conditions. Now, to back up, I told you this was going to be complicated. We want to put ourselves back in the ice age, right? So if we're all sciency about it, it's the place to seem. And that lasts for thousands and thousands and thousands of years, right? Even millions of years.
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But at about 15,000 years ago, the colder temperatures were starting to warm up. And what do I mean by colder? I mean, if we're doing Fahrenheit, you know, five degrees colder than today, 10 degrees colder than today. It's that kind of thing. It's not 50 degrees colder. We want to remember that.
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where a little difference in climate goes a very long way.
Causes of the Younger Dryas: Theories and Debates
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So the ice age is finally ending at about 15,000 years ago. Temperatures are moving up a few degrees. And so from about 15,000 to 13,000, there are warming temperatures. And at about 13,000, we're getting
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right around normal, modern temperatures. But then all of a sudden, and it does happen pretty fast, temperatures plunge back into glacial conditions, into ice age conditions. So we're adding five to 10 degrees and then boom, we drop off, you know, and lose.
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five to 10 degrees back into ice age conditions. And that lasts a thousand years from 13,000 to 12,000 years ago. And then at 12,000 years ago, the warming trend starts again. And at the beginning of that warming trend, that's when we say the Holocene starts.
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The Holocene is modern conditions. So again, if we want to be sciency, we go from the Pleistocene, the ice age, to the Holocene to modern conditions. And that flip happens about 12,000 years ago.
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Now to make things even crazier from 12,000 years ago, we go up to modern conditions and it actually at about 9,000 years ago, 8,000 years ago, it actually gets even a tick hotter than it is today just by a little and that's called the alti thermal.
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In archaeology, we like getting good data about the environment and about ancient climate, because obviously it tells us so much about ancient cultures and ancient societies, what they could do, what they couldn't do. It gives us that background diorama to how human cultures existed now.
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What we're talking about for this podcast, though, is the Younger Dryas. It's that weird moment where it's like, oh, my God, things got colder again for a second. So imagine this, right? We have glaciers that have been there forever and then they're melting a bunch. And then, oh, my God, they're coming back again. Right. It's this really weird scratch of the record player and back to these conditions. Now, of course,
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We want to know what caused it, right? That's the big question. Okay. It happened to now. We have very good data for this, that this drop back into glacial conditions did happen, but why now we're going to make it tougher on ourselves. Our current best guess is that as temperatures warmed.
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from 15,000 to about 13,000, you're gonna have a ton of melting glaciers, right? You're gonna have a ton of water that was in the ice that's now melting into the ocean and sea level is rising, right? And that combination of new water, kind of new fresh water flowing into the oceans at that time messed up the Atlantic conveyor system. That's that system in the Atlantic
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where warm water from the equator moves up towards the northern reaches. Right. And it sort of cycles back around that kind of thing. So you basically have this huge cycle of warm water going up, making temperatures more temperate. Right. And we still have versions of that today. You know, you're like, man, Europe is pretty high up in terms of its latitude. Why is it not that cold? It's because of things like this.
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So our idea is that this new glacial melt messed up that conveyor belt. So you have these plunging conditions, especially in the north, right? Back to ice age conditions. Now, one thing that we'll see happens as I talk about this is the earth is a big place.
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So these conditions are almost never global, meaning if you lived at the equator, you wouldn't notice this nearly as much as in this case, especially in the more northern polar regions. Right. That's super important to keep in mind. What happens in one area of the earth doesn't necessarily affect the whole earth or at least not nearly to the degree where it's happening at other places.
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So that's our best guess. And I think that makes a ton of sense, right? It's like, Oh, yeah. Okay. You got to have you introduce this new water and sea level rise. And of course, it's going to mess up ocean currents. And that will have big consequences.
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Now there are other theories to explain why the Younger Dryas happened. There's ones that have to do with atmospheric changes. Again, that's kind of like how Europe is warm, right? Sort of Gulf stream kind of things. We have the idea that maybe there were a series of volcanic eruptions, maybe a solar flare.
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And then finally, we have the comet impact hypothesis. Now, when you look at this list, the, what I would call the Atlantic conveyor model, that is by far the one that makes the best sense, right? And, but then you have these other ones. It's like the atmosphere and maybe, but you could see how that might even just be related to the.
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ocean, the volcanic eruption thing. There's not really super duper great evidence for that. So that's when I find gets thrown in a lot when we're unsure of things could be volcanoes. Yeah, but I don't really see it. The solar flare thing. I'm like, you know, again, you just don't really it's not really any super duper great evidence for that. And then the comet, there actually is some evidence
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for the comet that we'll talk about later, but it's way overplayed. And of course it is. It's a comet. Don't you want the comet story? Oh, hell yeah. I want the comet story because that sounds awesome. It's like this comet hits the earth. And then it changes the climate overnight and it plunges us back into the ice age, right?
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script writes itself. It's awesome. But if we want to be all cold and scientific about it, well, it just isn't nearly as good and satisfying as the Atlantic conveyor model. But it's much more satisfying in terms of story. And of course, the pseudo archaeology crowd has jumped all over that sucker.
Impact on Megafauna and Clovis Culture
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more on that later. So now that we understand what the Younger Dryas was, we want to understand what we're really asking. And there's a lot more than just like, did it happen or not. So first off, we can say with very good evidence that this Younger Dryas
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cooling event did happen. But here's what we're asking. Okay, was there a Younger Dryas? Yes. But then how did it matter? What was the ripple effect, right? We need to answer that. Then we're gonna talk about was there a comet? As we'll see, looks pretty good. But what was its effect then, right? And in terms of effect, we have a bunch of other things that people ask about this too.
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because the megafauna in North America are going to die off at this time. So we're asking, did this event impact the megafauna? And by megafauna, I mean things like woolly mammoths, dire wolves, giant sloth, you guys know these large Ice Age mammals. Did this affect Clovis culture? These are the
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early indigenous people in the new world because Clovis culture dates to about this time too. So this list of stuff, these are all the questions we really have to answer. And when we come back, we'll start doing that.
00:13:06
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00:14:46
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Hello and welcome back to the pseudo archaeology podcast, episode 117. And we have been talking about the younger, driest comet impact hypothesis.
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And at this point, I think we really want to talk more specifically about the comet. So in the previous section, we talked about the Younger Dryas in the
Comet Impact Hypothesis: Evidence and Critique
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background to that. Now, what about the comet? All right. I first heard about this in around 2000.
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maybe 2001. And there was an article in American antiquity, which is the big mama publication of the Society of American archaeology, right? It's kind of the big one. So this is a serious scientific hypothesis. And they found some really good evidence that a comet
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had hit the earth at around this time. Right. And they extrapolated from that and said, Hey, maybe this affected the megafauna. Maybe this had to do with the younger trias. Right. And that's how science works. They found evidence for a comet impact and then they kind of ran with it. So no harm, no foul. What I would say
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about the comet impact hypothesis as the years have gone on in the past 20 years that it has gotten weaker over time. Now, I am not here to tell you that it's a stupid idea or something or that it didn't happen.
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Do I think that a comet hit the earth around that time? Sure, I think there's decent evidence for something like that happening somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere, like in Greenland or in that neck of the woods. But as we talked about before in sort of outlining our questions, what was the true impact of the comet? The impact of the comet. I know, I had to.
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It's a lot less, I think, than we originally thought. And this is why. You don't really see one big, huge crater, right? We never want to think about this as the same as the story of the dinosaurs where a comet hits and then there's a huge bill to pay on that one. That's that's not what we're seeing.
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While I can be fine with some of the evidence in terms of that the comment hit, it's okay. What came after that? And I would say it's not a huge deal is what came after that. I think things like.
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when we were simply talking about the Atlantic conveyor belt, that explains what happened way better than a comet. Now, could a comet be a part of this story? Sure. And I do think when you look at the data, and again, the data's kind of sparse and it's hard to deal with, the Northern hemisphere seems much more affected by this stuff than the Southern hemisphere. So you could say, hey,
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While this cooling trend was naturally happening, there was also this comet that hit in the northern hemisphere, and it did disrupt some things in the northern hemisphere area as well. So you kind of have yes to both answers. You know, yes, there's the Atlantic conveyor belt that's changing the temperature and yes, a comet or some comet fragments hit and built upon that. But I would not say that the data shows us that the comet's like the prime mover.
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meaning that it wasn't like the earth was doing just fine, then a comet hit and everything fell apart. It's not like that. I think that's a disingenuous way of looking at this. When we look at the other factors like the death of the megafauna,
00:18:36
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If we look close, some of them were already dying out before the Younger Dryas, and some of them lived through the Younger Dryas and then died out a bit later. So again, it might be something that affected the dying off of the megafauna, but it wasn't like all the megafauna were great, comet hit, everyone died. It's not like that. That's disingenuous to the data. Also, if you're looking at Clovis, did the comet affect
00:19:06
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Clovis culture in North America. And I would say, again, Clovis sites are so rare, you guys. It's just so hard to say. But over time, population grew, not shrank. So I don't think it did anything in terms of the people there. You could also talk about did Clovis culture aid in
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taking out the megafauna. And I think the answer is sure, to a degree.
Archaeological Methods and Evolving Hypotheses
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That's another one that we give too much attention to. The idea that early Clovis hunters hunted out all the woolly mammoths or something like that. Obviously, if you have human beings introduced where there were no human beings before, and human beings are now killing woolly mammoths where they weren't killed before, that obviously is a factor. But
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There's only so many people in North America at the time. I don't think they're laying waste to all the megafauna. But it's just another factor. You see, I love talking about this because this is how archaeology really works. You have a series of questions and you have a series of data points and you're trying to match them. And it is always of necessity a bit awkward.
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And that's okay, right? Even though they came on big and strong with the comet impact theory about 20 years ago, it's gotten a little more weak over time. But that's all right. You know, we might find some more data in a decade or two that gives it a little more strength. But overall,
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You can't discount that the temperature of the Atlantic Ocean makes a huge difference in all this, right? So all these things are what are driving us forward, and that's the fun part. Now, if we look close, what we want to know is what is the actual evidence for the comet itself.
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Like I touched on before, it's not like we have some big huge crater that we can point to. You know what I mean? So that's kind of out. It's not necessarily necessary. You know, hey, comic could hit in the ocean or these kind of things. It's true. Or.
00:21:13
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You can have the comet basically explode in the atmosphere and then kind of rain down its bits and pieces in a generalized area. So you won't have one huge crater necessarily, but you'll basically have a shockwave that destroys a bunch of stuff. Those are called a meteor airburst. And the most famous one is the Tunguska event.
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of 1908. And I bet a lot of you have heard about this. It's the one where in Russia and Siberia in 1908, luckily, very few people live there. They think that only maybe a handful of people died on order of, you know, three or four, this kind of thing. But it was a meteor that was like the better, the better part of 200 feet wide. Isn't that crazy? But it came into the atmosphere and as it burns up, the rock itself exploded. Right. So you're going to have this huge shock wave. And that's where
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They were just a ton of flattened trees right from miles and miles. Flattened trees. And of course, that affects that localized area a little bit. But it's not like for years after that we had global devastation or something. It's localized.
00:22:26
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I don't mind thinking of the comet from 13,000 years ago being something like that. Again, it's localized and yeah, sure. The megafauna in that area. Yeah, they weren't doing too well, but it's not a worldwide phenomenon.
00:22:40
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As with the comet that did the dinosaurs in, we're also going to look for layers in the earth of certain things like certain types of crystals, certain types of elements, these kinds of things that only come with comets or only come with comet impacts. And they have found some of those types of things. I won't go into the specifics. It's pretty damn sciencey. You know, I agree with it like nano particles. I forget, you know, what what they're called. But
00:23:08
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Basically, these are signatures of comet impact, and they have found some of that. Some of the data has been called into question over time. This is definitely not a worldwide phenomenon, right? But in some of the areas, I mean, we'll see what the next year or two or five brings. I think the data seems okay to me, like good enough to be like, okay, see what you're saying.
00:23:32
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You know, I could be proven wrong in a year, but it's not super, super solid. I'll give them that. It's like, OK, you know, so we do see general trends of something localized happening. Another thing that you will hear that pseudoarchaeologists bring up and we'll get into the whole pseudoarchaeology thing in a minute is the black mat. Oh, my God. Not the black mat. It sounds like a super villain. Oh, my God.
00:24:02
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I've been chased by the black mat, the black mat. So what is the black mat? This is one thing I would hear super archaeologist say. Well, what about the black mat? Oh, I'll tell you about the black man. What the black man is laughing. It's it's an organic layer of that basically means, you know, vegetation in this kind of stuff that you're going to find around that.
00:24:26
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level around that 13,000 year level. But it is by no means worldwide, you just find it in a couple localized areas. And what does it mean? It just means that there was vegetation there. You know, but since it's black, sometimes if you want to take it to the extreme, you're like, Oh, it's because it's burned.
00:24:44
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because of the huge shockwave of the comet that went worldwide, you know, and that's where we ruin everything. The black mat is this evidence of the comet. It's like, no, it's just sort of silly. It's a way overdone thing, this layer. And they will say in these little spots where they found the black mat, they're like, well, you won't
00:25:07
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We find megafauna below the black mat and there's no megafauna above the black mat, meaning that the comet did in all the megafauna. And that evidence, you guys, that evidence.
00:25:18
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You know, it's just super localized. It doesn't really say too much except about that one area. It's like, yeah, okay. There weren't any wooly mammoths in this 400 acre parcel. But let me look at the rest of the earth, you know, and that's the problem with pseudo archaeology. It's a perfect example of cherry picked dishonest.
00:25:41
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data points, right? Which brings us to when we return the pseudo archaeology of the Younger Dryas and the comet impact hypothesis. Hey, archaeology podcast fans. Anyone that's heard me on a show has likely heard me mention coffee one or probably a thousand times.
00:26:00
Speaker
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00:27:13
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the pseudo archaeology podcast, episode 117. And we have been talking about the younger, driest and the comet impact hypothesis.
Pseudoarchaeology and Misinterpretations of the Younger Dryas
00:27:24
Speaker
There's a lot of stuff to deal with on this one. Guys, look how much background research I did for you people. Man, give and give. Barely sleep. Sometimes I'm just on the edge, man. And you know what puts me on the edge?
00:27:40
Speaker
When I have to deal with the pseudo-archaeology side to all this, uh, okay. Okay. Here's the deal.
00:27:49
Speaker
The pseudo-archaeologists, their story is, and actually you can see this at the end of Graham Hancock's ancient apocalypse. It's kind of the end point where they all get to. They need this thing so bad because it goes into their catastrophic idea of what happened at around, go pick your poison. Sometimes it's 13,000 years ago. Sometimes it's 10,000 years ago. Sometimes it's 10,000 BC, which would be 12,000 years ago. Just depends. But here's the idea.
00:28:19
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that the earth was all great at the end of the ice age. And there was an unknown, super advanced civilization at the time, which, of course, only lived on the coast because.
00:28:36
Speaker
There was then a flood all of a sudden that did away with this fantastic civilization. And then after the flood, all that was left of them were little bits and pieces that enabled later peoples to create all the classic civilizations, including Atlantis. Right. That's their big story that they've told a hundred and one times. That's their basis. That's their foundation that they go off of.
00:29:06
Speaker
that everything was cool in super civilization world, then a flood happened, wiped them out. But there were little like cultural memories of this worldwide global civilization that we can only barely just touch in the modern era. This is all, of course. Well, the scientific term is utter bullshit. But
00:29:35
Speaker
They use the younger drives for this and you can see why because they need a flood. They're always going towards needing a flood. They need something to wipe out their super civilization. And this is, of course, the worst way to do science with an end game in mind. Well, I'm just going to find this. And it's amazing what you find when you're looking for it.
00:29:55
Speaker
right? It's just totally bogus. So here's their deal. Everything's cool. Then the comet comes and then the comet smashes into Earth. And then it creates a flood from the comet because I believe the idea is it heats up
00:30:14
Speaker
The ice sheets, I think it also at that same time causes certain super lakes to break through and pour into the ocean all at once. I, you guys, I just can't get it straight because it is make believe time. Right. And what's stupid and sad is it actually takes.
00:30:34
Speaker
the real data of the comet and kind of flips it around and makes it incorrect in order to shove their dumb story through. So anyway, I think you get this, right? And then the super civilization that couldn't figure out how to live at higher elevations.
00:30:50
Speaker
They just couldn't do the higher elevation thing. No, I mean, I've been to the beach before and it is pretty awesome. So I got to give it to the ancient super civilization that dude, these front property, these front property is where it's at, dude. So good for them. And they were super civilized. So they know they're not going to they're going to live in the desert or in the mountains like losers. No way. They're living in Malibu. I hear you super civilization. So.
00:31:18
Speaker
In order to make the pseudo-archaeology world sound like they know stuff, they've actually started, and this is true, a thing called the Comet Research Group, which if you love oxymorons like I do, there's one for you, the Comet Research Group, and they're going to have a meeting. The Comet Research Group is having a meeting I am not kidding this summer.
00:31:43
Speaker
It's going to be the cosmic summit, y'all cosmic summit 2023. And it only costs 500 bucks to get in. You heard it here. Not first, but you heard it here. You guys, I'm not lying about any of that. None of that's a joke. There's a thing called the comment research group. Now I think originally there were a couple reasonable scientists in there, but they've just been drowned out by all the crazy people.
00:32:08
Speaker
And the cosmic summit is a thing. Now, Graham Hancock was going to be a part of this, but he had to pull out over intellectual property. Yes, I told you, I know you like oxymoron, so I'd give you that one. Graham Hancock's intellectual property.
00:32:27
Speaker
So it was him and one other guy, another one of the big pseudo archeology luminaries they pulled out. So you guys, I hate to report this, but there's infighting in the pseudo archeology world. I wish them well. And well, we're all going to take sides soon. Um, maybe, maybe I'll just take. I feel for the guy, you know, and the guy knows how to make a buck.
00:32:50
Speaker
So yeah, 500 bucks to get into this. I believe it's in South Carolina in the, in the summer, right? Summer of 2023. And you can go hear people talk about all this stuff. This is the tin hat crowd and they're going to bring up all of this stuff. You know, the black mat, the black mats coming for you, dude, at the cosmic summit, especially if you're a part of a comet research group.
The Pseudoarchaeology Community and Events
00:33:18
Speaker
And you know what? I love pseudo archaeology crowd too. They're such a fan of all this labeling, right? They give them labels that sound important. Comet research group. You know, they do all of this, all this labeling to make it sound serious because underneath it all, it's completely false.
00:33:39
Speaker
But whatever, you know, they're just going to keep on going. I think Randall Carlson still coming. The pseudo geologist himself. Again, how rare is that one? A pseudo geologist. I think I'm going to be one just for the money. Five hundred bucks a head. Dude, I paid like. I think I paid like. Two hundred bucks to see the Rolling Stones in Pasadena at the Rose Bowl.
00:34:05
Speaker
I mean, I guess if they can get 500 bucks a person, but and even for like shysters, that seems high. You know, I don't know. But I have to say, you know, as we've gone through this whole thing about the younger drives and what it really is in the comet and all that kind of good stuff. Oh, I hate to say it, but I'm going to admit this because I'm an honest, open person to my many listeners. Kind of want to go. Don't yell.
00:34:36
Speaker
I don't wanna go to the cosmic summit. Oh, just to walk around. Man, in terms of cultural anthropology, oh my God, a treasure trove. Man, you thought a Star Trek convention was weird. You know, I kinda wanna do it, but dude, I would never dump 500 bucks on that. That is just ludicrous. But you know, you would get me at 100 bucks and you might even get me at a 150.
00:35:05
Speaker
But again, I'm not I'm not going to go to South Carolina. It's too far away from me, but it's attractive in that horrible way in that terrible car crash.
Conclusion: Real vs. Pseudoarchaeological Claims
00:35:16
Speaker
I want to see weird things way in a. In a Ripley's believe it or not way. You know, I don't want to look, but I'm looking way. So, yeah, but in the end.
00:35:31
Speaker
We wanna answer the real questions, right? Of which there are several. So, did the younger Dryas happen? Yes. It was a return to glacial conditions for about a thousand years.
00:35:43
Speaker
Did a comet impact that? I know there's no other word for it. I have to use it. Did the comet itself impact that situation? We could say possibly in a local way, but not worldwide. Did it impact Clovis peoples? I don't know who's to say. Probably not a whole hell of a lot. Did it.
00:36:05
Speaker
have to deal with the megafauna being extinct. I don't think the comet did much of anything in terms of that, except for locally. But the Younger Dryas, yes, right, this different environmental conditions, I'm sure had something to do with the megafauna going extinct. That makes total sense. So
00:36:24
Speaker
When we look at all these together, we can see that it's super interesting as we use archaeology and science in order to answer these really tough questions. And just when you think of things like, wow, we can actually tell that there was this time period from 13,000 to 12,000 years ago where it got colder again. Isn't it great that we can reconstruct all that stuff?
00:36:48
Speaker
You know, if it was 100 years ago, we wouldn't know any of this stuff. And this is all thanks to hard work by dedicated archaeologists, not by fake storytellers. We're charging five hundred dollars per person. Although it's not a bad idea. Excuse me, you guys. I need to give a presentation in South Carolina. Yeah. And with that, I'll I'll see you later. I wonder if they'll call me a room.
00:37:21
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the pseudo archeology podcast. Please like and subscribe wherever you'd like and subscribe. And if you have questions for me, Dr. Andrew Kinkella, feel free to reach out using the links below or go to my YouTube channel, Kinkella teaches archeology. See you guys next time.
00:37:42
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Chris Webster. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.