sethnintendo said:
S.Peelman said:
sethnintendo said:
Granted History Channel does go a little extreme sometimes with their Ancient Aliens; they do raise some interesting questions. Stonehenge, various cultures that had no contact with each other building pyramids, etc... raise various questions. How the hell do they move a rock that weighs a shit load from very far with simple man made technology of the time (levers, ropes, etc). Some of the "man made" feats of the past are almost impossible with today's technology.
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To butt in on the Pyramid talk, which makes this response also relevant to S.T.A.G.E and some others.
The 'Pyramid' as a structure around the world is easily explainable. The key is the form factor. Basic forms in existance are the Cube, the Sphere, the Cylinder and the Pyramid. Everything in the world is build up (at it's core) from one of these forms.
So why a Pyramid? Simple, this form is the only one that's structurally stable by nature. The others aren't. If you were to build such a large object as a Pyramid (especially the Egyptian ones), the only form you can choose is the pyramid form, because everything else would collapse!
To return to the Egyptians, they experienced this themselves. They started with smaller 'mastabas' as grave structures, these were basically cube forms. When pharaos became more powerful, they wanted bigger and bigger graves for themselves (essentially it was one big pissing contest). However, the bigger graves got, the more unstable the structures became and builders experimented with each consecutive grave structure to come up with a better way to build bigger structures. This is evidenced by several existing pyramids in Egypt; the 'step pyramid' which was basically several mastabas (cube forms) stacked on top of each other to create height, and the 'bend pyramid' where they smoothed out the steps and realised a certain angle of wall grants greater stability and thus again greater height. It's not farfetched to assume other cultures came to the same discoveries.
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Okay it makes sense considering it is the most structurally sound for something to go high up. However, no one can explain Stonehenge and how such primitive people were able to move and lift such stones/boulders. You would need over 20,000 people for some of these boulders. Also, the stones in Stonehenge were moved from miles away.
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The neolithic people not only could do this but the world is repleat with examples of them doing this. Simple machines like levers, ropes, wedges, pullys, and rollers were common. The Moai of easter island were much larger and carved moved and errected with far fewer people than 20000. How do we know? Becuase there is evidence of how it was done.
Simply because you don't know how to move a really heavy object with simple machines and people power does not mean that it is impossible. The largest stone could be moved with 500 people and no one would have to 'lift' more than 50 kg. If they used smart application of force, rollers, levers, and so on, they would need a small fraction of that number. Habitation near the site shows more than enough manpower was present.
