A 'pyramid' dating back some 25,000 years may not have been constructed by humans, archeologists have claimed.
A study carried out at the Gunung Padang in Indonesia claimed to have found evidence of human activity at the site dating back thousands of years further than the next oldest pyramid.
It even claimed that there are 'hidden cavities or chambers' located within the structure.
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Authors of the study wrote: "Radiocarbon dating of organic soils from the structures uncovered multiple construction stages dating back thousands of years BCE, with the initial phase dating to the Palaeolithic era.
“This study strongly suggests that Gunung Padang is not a natural hill but a pyramid-like construction.”
Well, other archeologists have now hit back and said the 'pyramid' was likely not built by humans.
And before anyone begins immediately thinking ancient aliens and other conspiracy theories, it's not that either.
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They say that the structure wasn't built by humans because it wasn't 'built' by anybody.
Unless substantial evidence suggests otherwise, it is most likely that the 'pyramid' formed naturally.
It wouldn't be the only time. A photo of a mountain in Antarctica was cited as 'evidence' of a pyramid, when in fact the mountain was poking out of the ice and had been shaped to have sharp edges by hundreds of thousands of years of antarctic gales.
And while the study of Gunung Padang used 'legitimate data', archeologists have said that its conclusions that very ancient humans had worked on the site were unjustified.
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Flint Dibble is an archeologist at Cardiff University in Wales, and told Nature that it is likely that the structure formed naturally, unless extraordinary evidence is found suggesting otherwise.
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Dibble said: “Material rolling down a hill is going to, on average, orient itself.”
Archeologists have pointed out there are none of the usual signs of human activity in the layers of soil on the 'pyramid', such as charcoal, suggesting fire, or bone fragments.
Lutfi Yondri is an archeologist at BRIN in Bandung in Indonesia.
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He told Nature that his work showed that there was human habitation in the area between 12,000 and 6,000 years ago.
However, none of his findings have pointed to these people having the 'remarkable masonry capabilities' which they would have employed to construct the 'pyramid'.
That's not to say that ancient people weren't capable of extraordinary things, but in this particular case the evidence suggests it was nature's work, not humans.
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