Can You Tell the Difference Between a Geofact and an Artifact?

Objects dredged up from the Gulf of Khambhat in India appear to be made by humans. But are they really?

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[hitchman]

You know Hancock's argument is legit when he whips out the spooky music

[gerardtrigo]

I am a geologist, Working from just photographs is not conclusive, but those appear to be natural artifacts, not man made.

[legoguy]

Something not mentioned in this clip is that even if these objects *were* artifacts, they would have limited scholarly use because of how they were recovered. The fact that they were dredged up from the sea floor removes a great deal of context from these finds. Making interpretation extremely difficult.

[miaththered]

The 'spine' is just coral...

[colin-alexarobinson]

The idea that the shown objects could possibly be a “fossilized jawbone” or a spinal column is like. completely laughably ridiculous to me. how can anyone take this seriously? I’m not a geologist or a marine biologist or anything, I can’t tell you what process formed them, but I have seen bones before?? that spinal cord is missing every feature that makes vertebrae identifiable as such, it’s just white and vaguely segmented

[ClimateScepticSceptic-ubrg]

The cylindrical 'artifact' looks like either coral, or possibly part of a crinoid stem cemented with calcite in a natural process. As for the objects being 'polished' by human action, anyone familiar with beach debris knows that polishing by sand and sea action is universal. Interpretation of random marks as 'writing' is another desperate stretch. The question to me is, what is about human psychology that makes these fantasies so attractive to some peiple, rather than real science? Answer that question, and you will be on your way to finding an effective way to counter the hucksters and charlatans.

[michaelread]

I live in Taos New Mexico. This area used to be covered by the inland sea. I find rocks that look like that in the mountains here. Crinoid parts, tube worms, rocks that look like pottery but are actually fossil creek bed sandstone, and stone flakes that are not tools. Plenty of Native American artifacts can be found here also. But the difference between geofacts and artifacts is rather obvious. Graham Hancock is a poser. Not every rock that looks like a brick is a brick... Anyways. Thanks!

[MartijnHover]

Well, I did see some triangular guitar picks that were obviously intended for rock music. 😀

[sanguillotine]

These are some very impressive rocks they have found, my Geology professor would love to acquire a few, I’m sure. Not sure any archaeologists would be interested though, since they are just rocks.

[MarcosElMalo]

I had a roommate that was sure that peanut shells were manufactured. They were made out of cardboard.

[AlbertaGeek]

Hancock: "Clearly these people were master craftsmen!"
The objects: nothing looks like anything

[lefThumbs]

Thanks for linking the full episode, it's one I hadn't found in your back-catalogue- very interesting👍

[itsnot_stupid_ifitworks]

If Hancock truly Thought that these objects were legitimate, he could commission a study himself and submit a paper for peer review. It will be a slam dunk to prove his theory. But he won't because he knows it's bs

[matthewludivico]

I think the lack of scientific peer review potentially makes any exploratory discovery a nothing-burger if it is not followed up. It is critical to have the authors' Methods section to understand their process. Carbon dating pottery requires much care to produce accurate results.

[tewks]

Even if these are legitimate artifacts, I don't know why Hancock needs to invoke an ancient civilization to explain how mesolithic/neolithic people carved stones.

[feralfoods]

it's like the 'uncanny valley' effect in 3d animation—they almost look human, but there is room for doubt. although a short video, this is a great topic; i'm sure many problems with history & archaeology arise from this very problem. —thank you as always!

[MossyMozart]

From my anatomy classes, those "vertebra" look nothing like human vertebra.

[paulgreen]

I'd like to know how many pieces of rock they had to sort through to get that collection. The bigger the pile, the bigger the delusion.

[garymaidman]

The one with the hole through it, my first thought was a worm made it when the substrate was still soft. I have been fortunate enough to work with artifacts from 20000+ years ago and he calls them micro? Nope, not at all. Micro tools are 1-2cm. What he has aren't even tools aka artifacts. In my project, I had to go through an array of 11000+ pieces and only 1/10 of those were artifacts, the rest were geofacts. Many of the geofacts look like artifacts, especially to the untrained eye, I had to get guidance from my supervisor on many of them, at least initially.

[honodle]

If you want to see it bad enough, it becomes real. To you.