A headline-grabbing paper claiming that a composition in Indonesia is the oldest pyramid in the environment has elevated the eyebrows of some archaeologists — and has now prompted an investigation by the journal that published it, Nature has learnt.

The paper, posted in the journal Archaeological Prospection on 20 October, garnered headlines around the world. Its central declare is that a pyramid lying beneath the prehistoric internet site of Gunung Padang in West Java, Indonesia, may well have been made as considerably back as 27,000 decades back.

That would make it substantially older than 1st colossal Egyptian pyramid, the 4,600-12 months-old Pyramid of Djoser. It would also mean it pre-dates the oldest regarded megalithic web site, Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, which was built by stone-masons close to 11,000 a long time back. And it would completely rewrite what is acknowledged about human civilization in the spot. “The pyramid has come to be a image of highly developed civilization,” states paper co-creator Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, a geologist at the Countrywide Exploration and Innovation Agency (BRIN) in Bandung, Indonesia. “It’s not simple to make pyramids. You require significant masonry abilities,” he suggests.

It’s just these kinds of statements that have left several fellow scientists cold. Lutfi Yondri, an archaeologist at BRIN in Bandung, Indonesia, claims his perform has revealed that persons in the location inhabited caves in between 12,000 and 6,000 yrs back, very long following the pyramid was supposedly built, and no excavations from this period of time have unveiled proof of subtle stonemasonry.

“I’m shocked [the paper] was printed as is,” suggests Flint Dibble, an archaeologist at Cardiff College, United kingdom. He states that though the paper offers “legitimate details,” its conclusions about the site and its age are not justified.

Shaky foundations

Gunung Padang includes 5 stepped stone terraces, with retaining partitions and connecting staircases, that sit atop an extinct volcano. Among 2011 and 2014, Natawidjaja and colleagues investigated the web-site working with various ground-penetrating tactics to figure out what lies beneath the terraces.

They determined four levels, which they conclude represent individual phases of construction. The innermost layer is a hardened lava main, which has been “meticulously sculpted,” according to the paper.

Subsequent layers of rocks “arranged like bricks” were being built in excess of the prime of the oldest layer. The levels had been carbon-dated, working with soil lodged in between rocks acquired from a core drilled out of the hill. The to start with stage of development, according to the paper, happened concerning 27,000 and 16,000 decades ago. More additions were created concerning 8,000 and 7,500 a long time back, and the last layer, which features the seen stepped terraces, was set in spot concerning 4,000 and 3,100 many years in the past.

Dibble states that there is no distinct proof that the buried levels ended up designed by people and had been not the result of all-natural weathering and movement of rocks around time. “Material rolling down a hill is likely to, on regular, orient itself,” he states. But Natawidjaja suggests that the column-shaped stones have been much too big and orderly to have basically rolled there: “The neatly organized, shaped and substantial mother nature of these rocks, some weighing up to 300 kilograms, dismisses the likelihood of transportation around sizeable distances.”

The authors also report discovering a dagger-shaped stone. “This object’s regular geometry and distinctive composition, and its elements unrelated to the encompassing rocks, signify its artifical origin,” claims Natawidjaja. But Dibble states it is not likely that the rock was shaped by people. There is no evidence of “working or something to point out that it is man-produced,” he states.

Remarkable statements

The Gunung Padang web site highlighted in the 2022 Netflix documentary Historical Apocalypse, hosted by British creator Graham Hancock, who promotes an plan that an highly developed international civilization was wiped out 12,000 decades ago at the close of the last ice age. The authors acknowledge Hancock for proofreading their paper.

Natawidjaja claims that for the reason that Gunung Padang was made prior to the stop of the very last ice age, it shows that individuals from that time ended up capable of creating complicated buildings, and “this helps make it a quite exciting monument.”

But Invoice Farley, an archaeologist at Southern Connecticut Condition College in New Haven, suggests the paper has not supplied proof that an superior civilization existed all through the previous ice age. The 27,000-calendar year-previous soil samples from Gunung Padang, despite the fact that correctly dated, do not carry hallmarks of human exercise, these kinds of as charcoal or bone fragments, he suggests. Archaeological information exhibit that the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to elaborate societies occupying massive settlements occurred just after the commencement of the Holocene 11,700 decades ago. The oldest recognised town is the 9,000 calendar year outdated web page of Çatalhöyük in what is now Turkey.

Archaeological Prospection and its publisher, Wiley, have given that introduced an investigation into the paper. Eileen Ernenwein, an archaeological geophysicist at Tennessee Point out College in Johnson City, who is co-editor of the journal reported in an e-mail to Nature: “The editors, which include me, and Wiley ethics staff are at the moment investigating this paper in accordance with Committee on Publication Ethics guidelines.” She declined to elaborate on the mother nature of the considerations elevated.

Farley states that men and women should celebrate Gunung Padang for what it is — “an awesome, important and interesting site” — fairly than for the reason that it can be penned into any specific narrative about the improvement of human civilization.

Natawidjaja states that he hopes the controversy does not lead to animosity in the local community. “We are genuinely open to any individual scientists all over the environment would like to occur to Indonesia and do some investigation programme on Gunung Padang,” he suggests. “We know incredibly minor about our human heritage.”

This post is reproduced with permission and was initially printed on November 28, 2023.