Premium Episode 29: The World’s Oldest Pyramid? feat Bill Farley and Steph Halmhofer (Unlocked)

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A few weeks ago a paper was published in the journal Archaeological Prospection that the Gunung Padang site in Indonesia is not, as is generally believed, around 2 thousand years old. And that it is actually closer to 20,000 years old. For $5 a month, you can help support the show and listen to our full premium episodes. You'll also get access to all of our past subscriber only episodes, which is pretty cool. https://www.patreon.com/wetwired This claim was first floated back in 2014 but was largely disregarded for a few reasons. This 2023 paper seems like it’s mostly trying to vindicate the earlier one and rehabilitate those claims. Incidentally, this is also a site that Graham Hancock has leaned on heavily to support his worldwide, high-tech, lost civilization idea. Gunung Panang shows up in the very first episode of his 2022 Netflix series. Obviously, it’s a pretty grabby claim, so unsurprisingly more than a few popular websites absolutely lapped it up. To help us sort all this out, we're joined by Archaeologists Dr Bill Farley and Steph Halmhofer. Follow Steph Halmhofer: https://bonesstonesandbooks.com https://twitter.com/Cult_Archaeo https://bsky.app/profile/cultarchaeo.bsky.social Follow Bill Farley: https://linktr.ee/archaeologytube https://twitter.com/ArchaeologyGame https://bsky.app/profile/archaeologytube.bsky.social Some reading: Natawidjaja et al. 2023 Geo-archaeological prospecting of Gunung Padang buried prehistoric pyramid in West Java, Indonesia in Archaeological Prospection https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/arp.1912 Since recording this episode, some completely warranted heat has been directed at the publishers and authors of the 2023 Natawidjaja article. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03546-w The paper we mentioned a few times in this episode that Steph Halmhofer co-authored with William T. D. Wadsworth and Kisha Supernant. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/arp.1915 Indonesia’s Own ‘Pyramid’: The Imagined Past and Nationalism of Gunung Padang by Dian Sulistyowati https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348911628_INDONESIA%27S_OWN_%27PYRAMID%27_THE_IMAGINED_PAST_AND_NATIONALISM_OF_GUNUNG_PADANG Music: Airglow - Spliff and Wesson (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en For $5 a month, you can help support the show and listen to our full premium episodes. You'll also get access to all of our past subscriber only episodes, which is pretty cool. https://www.patreon.com/wetwired Catch up with us on the Wetwired Discord. https://discord.gg/fr62mpUy5c Follow us: Twitter at https://twitter.com/wetwiredpod Instagram at https://instagram.com/wetwiredpod Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/wetwired.bsky.social https://patreon.com/wetwired