Indonesian scientists came up with this idea in 2018, and they have also received a lot of support. But now they have presented new evidence, such as dating – but established science is not convinced and rejects the idea that a pyramid-building society existed somewhere on Earth before the end of the last ice age around 10,000 BC.
“Their desire to date this site to the Neolithic era appears to be driven more by a nationalist agenda than by scientific reasoning,” archaeologist and associate professor at the University of Copenhagen Tobias Richter told HISTORIA. Richter is not affiliated with the program, but has worked primarily with prehistoric societies in Asia.
It is said that the pyramid is the oldest building on Earth
No one doubts that the finds on the upper two levels of Gunung Padang – including stone pillars, walls, corridors and rooms – were built by humans. But the oldest pottery found in the area dates back to 45 BC.
The question is whether the “structures” found deep within the volcanic mountain form the basis of the Indonesian pyramid. They could also be natural rock formations that were formed as a result of volcanic activity in the past without human intervention.
If the Indonesians are right, there would have been pyramid builders in their country long before the Egyptians started pushing stones — the country’s oldest pyramid, Djoser, was built 4,600 years ago. Even the world’s oldest known megalithic structures, Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, date back to around 9500 BC.
Indonesian research leader Dr. Danny Hellman Natawijaga and his colleagues conducted research using ground-penetrating radar and carbon techniques. They believe they have found four layers of rock formations bearing signs of human activity. The inner layer consists of fossilized lava, which researchers say was “carefully sculpted” during the last ice age between 25,000 and 14,000 BC.
However, most scholars are far from convinced. In an article in nature According to Flint Dibble, an archaeologist at Cardiff University, there is no clear evidence that the stone formations are man-made. Dibble states that they may have been formed as a result of erosion and movement of the earth over time.
But Dr Natawidjaja disagrees, saying the stone pillars are too large and precisely arranged to reach their current locations through such a process. “The massive, neatly arranged stones, some weighing up to 300 kilograms, make it unlikely that they could have been transported naturally over large distances,” he says.
Scientists were baffled by the publication
However, there are several elements of the Indonesian thesis that are inconsistent with mainstream research. For example, there is no evidence that before 10,000 B.C. People were in the area. If there were people who could build the pyramid, it would be very strange for this to be the only relic.
Archaeologist Tobias Richter from the University of Copenhagen also criticizes the carbon-14 dating conducted by the Indonesian research team. According to him, it cannot serve as evidence of human activity because it was not made on anything that humans came into contact with.
“In this case, they appear to have only dated some soil from the layers beneath the archaeological site. This says nothing about human activity, just about the time when the soil studied was formed,” says Richter.
Finally, the archaeologist asserts: ‘Science is completely shocked and appalled by the publication of the article in a respectable journal. There has been a serious error here in the peer review and editorial process, because the evidence presented by the authors in no way supports the conclusions they reached.
