Researchers from Indonesia claim that the archaeological site of Gunung Padang in western Java was built by a powerful civilization 25,000 years ago. The scientific community is arguing fiercely about the hypothesis because of a fundamental error. The authors of the sensational article insist that they are right. And the publisher’s withdrawal of the research results is called censorship that contradicts the principles of science.
In October 2023, the Archaeological Prospection magazine of the renowned WiIey publishing house published an article about the Gunung Padang archaeological complex in West Java province. The authors claim that this is a burial pyramid that began to be built between 25,000 and 14,000 years ago.
“The study sheds light on the existence of advanced building technologies during the last ice age, when agriculture was not yet practiced,” conclude the authors, who include only one archaeologist. The others are geologists and engineers.
The publication caused a storm of criticism in the professional community. The media published articles with refutations. Leading world publications – Nature, The New York Times, The Guardian – devoted articles to the analysis of the bold hypothesis.
Under pressure from the scientific community, the journal’s editorial board launched an investigation, and on March 18, the publication was retracted.
“We received feedback from geophysicists, archaeologists, and radiocarbon dating experts, studied it, and came to the conclusion that the article contains a fundamental error,” the publishing house reported.
Megalithic Complex of Gunung Padang, Cianjur, West Java, Indonesia
Indonesia is famous for its megalithic monuments. The first information about them was published by European explorers who arrived here under the auspices of the East India Company. Terraces with menhirs, stone sarcophagi and dolmens, urns with lids and anthropomorphic figures were found on large and small islands of the Malay Archipelago. Scientists noted similarities with structures in Western Europe, Egypt, and pre-Columbian America. Indonesian archaeologists suggest that this is due to two waves of migration – in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. Analysis of the finds, on the contrary, indicates a later origin: the 7th-16th centuries AD.
There are more than 200 monuments in the province of West Java, including monumental ones. Gunung Padang is one of the most spectacular and mysterious. It is located on the top of the cone of an extinct volcano, buried in tropical vegetation. The first information about it dates back to 1891, during the Dutch colonization. Later, it was examined by archaeologist Nicholas Krom, who suggested that it was a burial place. In 1979, local residents stumbled upon the megaliths. They were examined by archaeologists, and in 1998 a national park was created here.
The complex includes 13 artificial terraces, five of which have been cleared. They contain the remains of embankments, fences, steps, foundations made of basalt and dacite prisms. The height of the monument is 150 meters, the area is about a thousand square meters. This is the largest megalithic structure in Southeast Asia.
Locals consider Gunung Padang a sacred place, in ancient times it was used for rituals. The name in Sundanese means “Mountain of Enlightenment”.
From 2011 to 2014, the monument was studied by an expedition led by geologist Danny Natawijaya. They conducted archaeological, geophysical research, mapping, and drilling.
“The work shows that these are not just prehistoric stone terraces, but a complex underground structure with significant rooms and cavities,” the authors of the study write.
Reconstruction of the Gunung Padang site on the island of Java. CC BY 4.0 / Archaeological Prospection
Scientists drilled wells to the base of the terraces, took cores and conducted radiocarbon dating. The oldest samples are 25,000 years old. This gave reason to claim that the pyramid was first built during the Ice Age. Then it was abandoned for several millennia.
The conclusion contradicts all accumulated archaeological material, according to which the oldest stone settlement on Earth appeared on the territory of Turkey 11 thousand years ago (Göbekli Tepe), and the oldest pyramid of Djoser appeared in Egypt 4,600 years ago.
The work in Gunung Padang attracted media attention. Even before the publication of the results, Natawijay gave lectures and presented reports at conferences. In 2022, Netflix showed the documentary series Ancient Apocalypse. The host, British writer Graham Hancock, presented evidence of the existence of a powerful civilization in the last ice age, destroyed by a natural or cosmic cataclysm. The survivors invented agriculture, architecture, astronomy. However, official science, Hancock claimed, does not recognize this.
The Indonesian group’s findings seem quite plausible. The researchers dated organic material in the soil collected from boreholes and trenches. They analyzed the ratio of carbon-14, which only living organisms accumulate, and stable isotopes. The lower the 14C, the older the sample. The authors suggested that the organic matter got into the soil during and after the construction of the pyramid. Having studied 12 samples, they obtained dates from 25,000 years BC to 1,500 years.
The scientific community as a whole has no doubt that the dating is correct. What is confusing is the interpretation. Archaeologist Bill Farley points out that there was no charcoal or bone in the samples that would indicate human presence.
Thai archaeologist Noel Tan calls the attempt to link the age of the soil with human artifacts a “big logical error.”
In 2014, another group of scientists found only a few fragments of ceramic dishes, fragments of stone tools, metal, and coins of a later period at the same place. Coal dating indicated 117-45 BC. The head of the work, Lotfi Yondry, in an interview with Nature notes that people inhabited the local caves twelve thousand to six thousand years ago, and they did not have any advanced construction technologies.
In 2018, geologists found a mysterious ancient pyramid in the forests of Java Island — the largest and potentially the oldest man-made pyramid in history. Radar images of the island helped geologists find the ancient mysterious pyramid deep in the forests. The researchers reported the discovery at a meeting of the American Geological Union.
“We thought there was some kind of structure on this hill in the past. It turns out it extends far down, consists of several layers and occupies virtually the entire volume of the hill,” said Andang Bachtiar, a geologist with the oil company Maurel & Prom.
Pyramid found in Indonesia. Natawidjaja et al. / AGU Fall Meeting 2018
Bakhtiar and his colleagues accidentally discovered one of the largest and potentially oldest man-made pyramids in history while studying the slopes of Mount Padang in western Java. Here, as scientists note, a peculiar “mound” – Gunung Padang – covered with many stone blocks was discovered two centuries ago. It was believed that this structure, presumably a temple from the end of the Stone Age, could hide even more ancient and large-scale structures.
A team of researchers conducted a series of excavations on the mountain slopes and “illuminated” it with radar and other devices. They allow hidden cavities and traces of ancient artifacts to be detected by changes in the electric or magnetic field of the soil.
To the great surprise of scientists, all the surroundings of this mountain, the total area of which is about 15 hectares, turned out to be part of one man-made structure, partially covered with soil and overgrown with forest.
Its height, according to researchers, is about 30 meters, it consists of three parts built in the crater of an extinct volcano at different times. The first, largest layer of the pyramid is laid out of similar blocks mixed with sand. It was built, as radiocarbon analysis shows, about 15-28 thousand years ago. The two subsequent levels appeared on top of the first layer much later: about 8.3 and 3.5 thousand years ago. During this time, they managed to be covered with a thick layer of soil and vegetation, making the pyramid invisible to tourists and even professionals.
Interestingly, radar images show cavities inside the pyramid, suggesting hidden rooms or structures partially buried in the hill. Archaeologists believe this proves that the pyramid was indeed a temple, not just a burial site or an “observatory” like the famous Stonehenge.
