Ancient Apocalypse (Netflix)
Ancient Apocalypse (Netflix)
Boosting an important limited series and my thoughts on the fascinating way in which people can become invested in a narrative, becoming completely blind to new evidence that contradicts it.
If you’ve been following my newsletter from its beginning, you might remember this post from December 2019.
In it, I shared a personal fascination with the idea that there was an advanced human civilization that thrived during the last ice age and came to cataclysmic destruction at the end of the ice age around 12,800 years ago.
The main person piecing together this theory is Graham Hancock.
On its face, Hancock’s assertion that we’re “a species with amnesia” goes against everything we’ve been taught in history class about the human story. The human story I was taught in high school is quite linear.
Hancock has been dismissed by mainstream "experts” for many years. However, there are many people - like me - who find his theory compelling and worth considering. Enough so to drive Netflix to fund an 8-episode series released last week called Ancient Apocalypse.
Journalist Graham Hancock travels the globe hunting for evidence of mysterious, lost civilizations dating back to the last Ice Age.
Despite Carole’s eye rolling, I binged the entire 8-part series and was delighted to see all the pieces I’ve heard about over the last ~10 years fit together with state-of-the-art visual effects. The series is incredibly well done and reinforces Hancock’s theory. There’s simply not enough counter-evidence to contradict it.
Despite the convincing evidence to back the lost civilization theory, there has been a complete rejection of this notion by mainstream academia, namely archeologists. It’s fascinating because their reaction is the opposite of what I’d expect from professionals with deep curiosity to find the truth about our past.
See an example of how Hancock’s skeptics discount his theory in: “No, There Wasn't an Advanced Civilization 12,000 Years Ago” on Scientific American publication
One thing that makes me optimistic is that the author of that article, Michael Shermer, went on to adjust his absolutist rejection just a few years later:
But Shermer is a professional skeptic. Not an archeologist. It’s his job to be skeptical.
In his new series, Hancock offers what he believes to be the explanation for mainstream academia’s rejection of his theory. Hancock suggests that mainstream archeologists have become too attached to the previous version of the story (that civilization developed in Mesopotamia 6,000 years ago) and have completely refused to look at new evidence to the contrary.
Simply put, academics have tied their identity in the previous narrative and any evidence to counter the narrative is experienced by them as an attack. The refusal to look at the evidence and engage with Hancock can be explained as nothing other than an antibody defense to an existential threat on the current paradigm.
Despite the dating of many megalithic sites around the world to more than 10,000 years, mainstream academia insists that these were built by hunter gatherers who wouldn’t even have agriculture for another 4,000 years. The notion that a site like Gunung Padang (Indonesia) or Gobekli Tepe (Turkey) were built by uncivilized hunter gatherers with basic stone tools is absolutely ridiculous. It makes zero sense.
Yet, mainstream archeologists are completely stuck in their former version of the human story. It’s a fascinating study in human psychology and an important reminder that “experts” who refuse to look at new evidence are violating the scientific and undermining the entire enterprise of seeking knowledge and truth.
Why does finding the truth about this stuff matter?
If we did, in fact, lose an entire advanced human civilization to a global cataclysm at the end of the last ice age, it can happen again. This is the most important takeaway of the theory Hancock has been piecing together.
While we see our current civilization as solid and resilient, I think we’d be absolutely fucked if we cross paths with a cosmic threat such as a big asteroid or comet. We know our planet has been hit many times. Just look at the moon. Craters galore. Dinosaurs ain’t around anymore, either.
If you watch Hancock’s show, you’ll see a compelling amount of evidence that survivors of a major cataclysm 12,800 years ago were sending a warning into the future. It’s a message, addressed to us.
If we got hit by the same kind of cataclysm that took place at the end of the last ice age, almost nothing would be left 10,000 years later. Human knowledge is stored digitally and would be essentially wiped out. And very few of us have any idea how to survive without grocery stores and supply chains. We’d be truly, genuinely screwed.
Finding the truth matters because for the first time in human history, we’re capable of protecting ourselves from cosmic threats. If we only take these seriously.
The longer that mainstream archeologists drag their feet and refuse to look at the evidence, the less seriously our society will be taking this cosmic threat.
If this sounds interesting to you, I highly recommend watching the new Ancient Apocalypse series on Netflix. And if you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them!
