I am always on the lookout for more about the 23ky-old Gunung Padang pyramid on Java. It was long thought just a hill, until it was shown to have been built instead. As far as I know only Danny Widjaja is working on it. It should have a whole department excavating it.
According to Wikipedia, the accepted dating is much more recent (~2kyo).
> Thirty-four Indonesian scientists signed a petition questioning the motives and methods of the Hilman-Arif team. Archaeologist Víctor Pérez described Natawidjaja's conclusions as pseudoarchaeology.
Wikipedia is singularly unreliable on prehistory, being curated largely by retired history professors out to defend whatever they argued back in grad school.
What matters more than petitions is actual surface luminescence measurements.
They've taken subsequent radiocarbon dates and they're much more recent. OSL is a newer, more expensive technique that performs poorly in wet, volcanic rock, much less in an area that probably doesn't have highly refined curves. It's likely that no one has taken any samples.
A former (or current) history professor who blocks reporting of current measurements is a psuedo-what-have-you.
A very current example is Younger Dryas Impact deniers. (Note that doubting the Impact actually caused the Younger Dryas cold spell does not by itself make one such a denier.)
As of 2019 it is fact. You would need to come up with something else to account for all the evidence. The only remotely plausible alternative would be volcanism, but without sulfur.
It sounds interesting but also relatively easy to prove/disprove. Danny Hilman Natawidjaja claimed 1-3 meters down is a man made matrix of rock so that’s the easiest place to start. If he was so confident surely he’d have proved it by now?
Interestingly, the picture he drew even looks like a volcano.
Apparently they had a large funding budget for that site at one point. Danny & team went out there and dug it up with hoes quickly, so perhaps that is part of the reason why you can’t excavate now
Fun fact: People descended from these civilizations still exist, broadly called Maya peoples, although they don't really view themselves as a singular group because they all have their own cultures/languages/civilizations they came from!
Tangent: Guatemala remains one of my favorite travels. The Mayan ruins are stunning, especially Tikal (Yavin 4 for you Star Wars fans), you can hike on volcanos or in jungles, and I can't recommend enough the old Spanish city of Antigua. (Lake Atitlán was fine. Skip Livingston beach on the east coast.)
If anyone's interested in a very accessible look at LIDAR exploration, I highly recommend explorer Albert Lin's National Geographic series Lost Cities.[1]
