Talk:Marine archaeology in the Gulf of Khambhat

Scholarly problems

There are very serious scholarly problems with the arguments and interpretations being made for the existence of sunken cities in the Gulf of Cambay (Khambhat). This can be seen in the text posted to one version of the "Ruins in the Gulf or Cambay" article for Wekipedia. The first paragraph for it reads:

On May 19, 2001, India's science and technology minister Murli Manohar Joshi announced the finding of the remains of an ancient city on the seabed of the Gulf of Cambay (also known as the Gulf of Khambat), along a nine kilometer stretch off the coast of Gujarat province. Located 40 metres deep it was discovered by the National Institute of Ocean Technology in December 2000 and investigated for six months with acoustic techniques. The structures of the city were said to resemble those of major cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation, with regular geometric patterns representing a granary, a great bath and a citadel."

This paragraph omits the fact that there exists extremely significant scholarly disagreements about how the sonar images should be interpreted. It is a well-known fact that geometric features virtually identical to those seen in the sonar images can be produced by faults in the manner in which sonar data is collected and processed to create the image. Many marine archaeologists and geologists, of whom a number are experienced in the use of sonar in underwater investigations, regard the geometric features seen in the sonar images as being nothing more than such artifacts of the sonar imaging process. It is also a well-documented fact that fracture and jointing can produced the rectilinear patterns seen in many of the sonar patterns. Given that the alleged undersea ruins are typically associated with parts of the Gulf of Cambay (Khambhat) bottom underlain by well-cemented sediments, it is quite possible that the geometric features seen in many of the sonar images are rectilinear / orthogonal jointed bedrock. The irregular feature shown in a in subbottom profiler image Figure 12 and 13 is far more characteristic of bedrock outcropping on a sea floor than any man-made wall or other structure. Therefore, the sonar images images by themselves are not conclusive evidence of alleged ruins reported from the bottom of the Bay of Cambay (Khambhat) as being valid. The existence of these ruins can only be proved by personal inspection on the bottom of the Bay of Cambay (Khambhat) and documentation of their existence with enough photography and excavations of the bay bottom to show that in situ ruins actually do exist. It is quite revealing that people have invested so much time, effort, and money into investigating the actual stonework of the "ruins" alleged to be illustrated by the sonar images and have neither taken a single clear photograph of nor recovered a single cut block of stone from these ruins.

The case of the sonar image of Figure 7, "A Bathing Facility for Ancients is quite revealing. From what I have learned, the NIOT team, who interpreted the geometric patterns shown in this figure as an ancient structure, have never been to able to relocate it and some similar alleged ruins seen in sonar images despite having precise GPS coordinates for their location. Although they explain the failure to relocate these structures as the result of them having been being buried by shifting sand, the failure to relocate this and other "ruins" seen in the sonar images can also be explain by them being nothing more than phantoms created by faults in either the acquisition or processing of sonar data to create the images.

It is possible that some of the linear and rectilinear features seen in the Gulf of Cambay (Khambhat) are real. However, these features, even if real, are not evidence of human settlements as natural processes can produce rectilinear and linear features as discussed in Are Straight Lines and Rectangular Blocks Always Man-Made? and Tasmanian Tesselated Pavement and Oil Mountain, Wyoming. Similarly, the magnetic anomalies reported from the Bay of Cambay are useless as evidence of man-made ruins on its floor as natural processes are capable of producing all sorts of magnetic anomalies, including linear ones.

The former article also stated:

"A follow up investigation was conducted by the same institute in November 2001, which included dredging to recover artifacts. News articles report that a block of wood was recovered that was dated to 9,500 years old, which is 5000 years older than the Indus Valley Civilisation."

Because of the manner in which this piece of wood was collected, there is a complete lack of any stratigraphic evidence to show that this piece of wood is associated in any way with the geometric patterns seen in sonar images of the floor of the Gulf of Cambay. This is an major problem because it is quite common to find pieces of wood, which are up to several thousands of years old, which have been eroded from older sediments and incorporated into modern sediments. This discussed in Artifacts or Geofacts? Alternative Interpretations of Items from the Gulf of Cambay.

The same problem exists for those objects, which are clearly real artifacts. They consist mainly of flaked stone tools and debitage. From what has been published, all of these artifacts were recovered from material from the bottom of the Gulf of Cambay (Khambhat) and not from any scientifically controlled excavations in the sea bottom. Given the matter in which the dredging and other sampling operations have mixed material occurring in different strata, it is impossible to know whether these and other artifacts are where they have been found and have been washed in from elsewhere. Also, the lack of any knowledge from what layer that the various artifacts and objects came from make its impossible for the NIOT team know the age of many of these artifacts relative to each and their hypothetical cities. The presence of Paleolithic artifacts, which greatly predate the inferred age of the alleged submerged “ruins” clearly demonstrates the admixture of objects and artifacts of a wide variety of ages because of the manner in which they were collected. Given the manner in which these artifacts were collected, it is impossible for any connection, except in speculation, to be made between the artifacts and the alleged "ruins" hypothesized by the NIOT team.

"New underwater explorations were done in Gulf of Cambay since 2003 to 2004 and samples of pottery were sent to Oxford laboratorie to be dated by optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating techniques. The results are extraordinary, as the finding of the earliest pottery in the world from about 30000 BP."

This statement is unsupported the published data. One problem is that these dates come from objects, which may or may not be pottery. Given that the NIOT team still insists that objects, which are clearly natural concretions, are man-made artifacts and, in one case, a jawbone, it is quite possible that they have also confused natural concretions with pottery. That their so-called “pottery” is in fact naturally cemented sand, which is quite common in an arid environment, is indicated by the abundance of carbonate in what they have identified as pottery. The carbonate is quite liekly not a secondary accumulation, as they explain it, but rather the primary cement of the naturally cemented sand comprising their alleged “pottery”. The fact that sediment samples, which they collected dated the same as this and other pieces of the so-called “pottery”, is significant evidence that many of the objects, which they identified as pottery were never fired.

Some comments of professional archaeologists about many of the alleged artifacts from the Gulf of Cambay (Khambhat) as archived on the Underwater Archaeology Discussion List http://lists.asu.edu/archives/sub-arch.html] include:

“It would be a hell of a stretch to see anything "artifactual" in those snaps. Looks like pure supposition to me.”

From [“Are These Real Artifacts…” April 26, 2002 http://lists.asu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0204&L=SUB-ARCH&P=R23568&I=-3]

“My frank impression ... there is no discernible artifact in the lot. My franker opinion ... there won't (ever) be [unless someone starts planting artifacts whenever the fool(s) who believe in such pipedreams start taking the derision of reasonable folk to heart]!”

From [“Are These Real Artifacts…” April 22, 2002 http://lists.asu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0204&L=SUB-ARCH&P=R20952&I=-3]

The geochemical analysis also fails to provide any proof of the alleged “pottery” and other objects being man-made. Both natural concretions and man-made objects would be composed of local materials. In addition, the geochemical analysis of the Rare Earth content of the objects does not show they come specifically from the alleged “ruins” but rather only from the area of the alluvial valley now drowned by the Gulf of Cambay (Khambhat) and buried by younger coastal plain deposits. These objects could have come from anywhere within this region, of which the area covered by the alleged “ruins is only a relative small part. The objects were not necessarily formed within and are specifically associated with the alleged “ruins” but rather could also have been transported to where they were found from adjacent parts of the Cambay (Khambhat) region.

Finally, looking at the changes, which have occurred between February 12 and 13th, it seems that either a person or persons involved in editing the "Ruins in the Gulf of Cambay" seem intent on allowing only one side of the controversy concerning whether or not actual ruins have been found at the bottom of the Bay of Cambay being presented. A deep felt antagonism towards anyone, who dares disagrees with the validity of the Cambay ruins, is illustrated by dissenting points of view being falsely characterized in the Revision of 21:14, 11 February 2006 as being "attacks against people that discovered the ruins in Cambay" and falsely as being "not fair neither scholarly done" and "not scholarly well intentioned". The author of these statements would make a better case for the validity of the Gulf of Cambay ruins if he would stop automatically and mindlessly attacking people for being unscholarly, unfair, and modern day "colonists" simply because they disagree with him and instead present solid evidence and logical arguments that contradict his point of view.

The fact of matter is that except for supporters of “Vedic science”, very few, if any, conventional archaeologist and marine geologists currently give any significant credence to the interpretations of the NIOT team about the validity of their interpretations. If the Cambay ruins and 30,000 year-old pottery were accepted as being valid by the scientific community in general, Dr. Badrinaryan would not be publishing his article on the Graham Hancock web site, which devoted to discussing various aspect of alternative archaeology and science including Atlantis, Mu Lemuria, the Philadelphia Experiment, Majestic-12 Group, Freemason conspiracies, the Holy Grail, and the web site owner’s personal theories of how hallucinogenic drugs can be used to access an alternative reality.

Just Some thoughts

Paul, a Geologist and Geoarchaeologist

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Paul, a Geologist and Geoarchaeologist

It is suspicious that the supposed geoarchaeologist that writes in Talk: Ruins in the Gulf of Cambay writes a long skeptical article and do not mention his complete name. Anyway who can say the real motivations of such SKEPTICALS. Declarations like: "NO ARCHAEOLOGIST accepts it" make me suspect. They judge but NO BODY can judge them. They say they are professionals, but even proffesionals have a political view. The emphatical way of this opposition is very suspicious even though with supposed specialists. This skeptical scientifics are CLEARLY politically motivated. The NIOT team has archaeologists, though not as main conductors of the project, and there are also other specialists in the team from many fields.

The supposed Skeptical geoarchaeologists also lies when he says that fragments could be from elsewhere because NIOT's team made an study of the soil of the bottom of the sea showing that it has the same composition as pottery found. There are many other lies of this supposed specialist, once again quoting NOT UPDATED findings. This way of behaviour is VERY VERY SOUSPICIOUS.

I see triying to have a REAL scientific discussion with such people is IMPOSSIBLE, they will find pseudo-scientific arguments all the time. They do not want to find the truth. And here in Wikipedia I see there are also dangerous persons performing the wall who stops to see the light for all. Sadly they are not few in Wikipedia.

Other people from Wikipedia have to know that there are many political enemies of India that do not hesitate to use "scholars" to deny the truth. These days Steve Farmer and Michael Witzel, supposed scholars even presented a video of UNTOUCHABLES to justify their claims and attacking India's way of living and culture.

How sad! Even Wikipedia has that kind of people infiltrated!

Reply To My Anonymous Critic

My anonymous critic stated:

It is suspicious that the supposed geoarchaeologist that writes in Talk: Ruins in the Gulf of Cambay writes a long skeptical article and do not mention his complete name.

I find it revealing that the person complaining about me not mentioning my complete name lacks the courage of his conviction to provide any means of identifying himself at all. He is either not logged in or, possibly, even lacks an account. On the other hand, I have registered and, for the most part, remember to log in before contributing something to Wikipedia. Also a person can get a brief summary of my background at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Paul_H. A more resourceful person, by following the links, can find my full name on my The Wild Side of Geoarchaeology Page.

The above critic continued:

Anyway who can say the real motivations of such SKEPTICALS. Declarations like: "NO ARCHAEOLOGIST accepts it" make me suspect. They judge but NO BODY can judge them. They say they are professionals, but even proffesionals have a political view. The emphatical way of this opposition is very suspicious even though with supposed specialists. This skeptical scientifics are CLEARLY politically motivated.

Anyone is free to visit my The Wild Side of Geoarchaeology Page and read articles of mine, i.e. The Coso Artifact: Mystery from the Depths of Time and An Evaluation of the Geological Evidence Presented By Gateway to Atlantis for Terminal Pleistocene Catastrophe posted on the Hall of Ma'at Website. There a person can find my full name and find that I am critical of shoddy research regardless of whether it is published by Young Earth creationists, quasi-New Agers, or followers of other political or religious philosophies. If a person looks at the nationalities of the authors of the articles and books, of which I am critical, they will find that I call it as I see it regardless of whether the authors of an article is either American (Chittick), English (Andrew Collins), or another nationality. In posts to the Ma'at message board, I written more critical comments about western authors, i.e. Gavin Menzies and Robert Sarmast, than Indian authors. As my web page indicates, I am just a Quaternary geologist, because I have done and still do professional work as a geoarchaeologist, who on the side has a interest in testing the scientific validity of the various ideas, which alternative archaeologists have advocated about Holocene and Pleistocene catastrophes, Earth Crustal Displacement, the "true" location of Atlantis, "Lost Civilizations", and OOPARTS (Out Of Place ARTifacts) regardless of their race, religion, nationality, gender, or sexual orientation. Writing popular articles for web pages and other places is largely a hobby, which I use to relax and forget about my other concerns when I feel burned out from life in general.

The level of acceptance of the "ruins" of the Gulf of Cambay can be seen by the utter absence of lengthy discussions of the articles published by the NIOT team in the mainstream archaeological literature. Besides a few papers authored by the NIOT Team and published in local journals and a few conference abstracts, lengthy discussions of the alleged underwater ruins and 30,000-year old pottery is noticeably absent from the mainstream, international scientific literature. If accepted by the international archaeological community as being valid, a discovery as spectacular as the undersea “ruins” and 30,000 year-old pottery would have been commented by now in a variety of papers by other archaeologists in international journals. It is revealing of the level of acceptance of the Gulf of Cambay "ruins" that the only significant reference to the underwater "ruins" of the Gulf of Cambay, which I can find at this time, in the mainstream archaeological literature is a book, edited by a well respected and internationally recognized archaeologist, Garrett G. Fagan, that is titled "Archaeological Fantasies". Also, in a Google search, a person finds these ruins being featured either on web pages promoting quasi-New Age arguments about Atlantis, other Lost Civilizations, and prehistoric visitations by extraterrestrials or promoting Vedic science or newspaper articles prepared from press releases. An atypical newspaper article can be found in Volume 19, Issue 05, Mar. 02 - 15, 2002, of “Frontline”. "Frontline" is an Indian magazine.

My critic might be able to find out for himself about what mainstream archaeologists think about the undersea "ruins" of Cambay and their associated 30,000-year old pottery by going to the Underwater Archaeology Discussion List, joining the mailing list, and posting the title and URL to Dr. Badrinaryan's Gulf of Cambay article to it along with a request for the opinions of the archaeologists on the list concerning his interpretations.

The anonymous critic continued:

The NIOT team has archaeologists, though not as main conductors of the project, and there are also other specialists in the team from many fields. The supposed Skeptical geoarchaeologists also lies when he says that fragments could be from elsewhere because NIOT's team made an study of the soil of the bottom of the sea showing that it has the same composition as pottery found. There are many other lies of this supposed specialist, once again quoting NOT UPDATED findings. This way of behaviour is VERY VERY SOUSPICIOUS.

I find it very suspicious that this anonymous critic cannot defend his position using the data, published literature, basic scientific principles, and logic. Instead, he simply denounces anyone, who disagrees his own interpretation of the research conducted by the NIOT Team as being "politically motivated", "political enemies of India", "pseudo-scientific", and of spreading "lies" without offering a single shred of proof to support these allegations. Although I might be wrong, the immediate impression that can from the comments of my anonymous critic is that he or she does not understand that a person can honestly disagree with his (her) and the NIOT Team's interpretation of their research in the Gulf of Cambay without having any political agenda.

In terms of the pottery analysis, the number of samples is too few and the area sampled is too limited to provide any proof of their interpretation. If their research is as definitive and solid as my critic claims above, I wonder why it was published on the web site of an alternative archaeologist, regarded among conventional (mainstream) archaeologists, as being quite careless in his “scholarship” instead of submitting to an international scientific journal like "Nature", "Science", or "Geoarchaeology" If either Dr. Badrinaryan or the NIOT Team wants to be taken seriously, they need submit their research to an international journal such as "Geoarchaeology".

The anonymous critic continued:

I see triying to have a REAL scientific discussion with such people is IMPOSSIBLE, they will find pseudo-scientific arguments all the time. They do not want to find the truth. And here in Wikipedia I see there is also a dangerous person called Brunock. He performs the wall who stops to see the light for all. Sadly he is not the only one in Wikipedia who doest it.

Other people from Wikipedia have to know that there are many political enemies of India that do not hesitate to use "scholars" to deny the truth.

In my opinion, my critic is taking this discussion far, far too seriously. :-) :-) Just because a person disagrees with my anonymous critic fails to make them "dangerous". Just because someone disagrees with him or her about what happened thousands of years ago does not make them the equivalent of a bomb-throwing terrorist, who should be reported to both the Department of Homeland Security and its Indian equivalent.

The anonymous critic finally noted:

These days Steve Farmer and Michael Witzel, supposed scholars even presented a video of UNTOUCHABLES to justify their claims and attacking India's way of living and culture. How sad! Even Wikipedia has that kind of people infiltrated!

In my opinion, what is really sad here is that my anonymous critic does not understand the difference between harmless scholars and Osama bin Laden. If interested parties want to evaluate for themselves an example of the kind of scholarship, which has made my critic so upset, they can read:

Witzel, Micheal, 2006, Rama's realm: Indocentric rewritings of early South Asian archaeology and history in Fagan, G. G., ed., pp. 203-232, Archaeological Fantasies. Routledge Taylor, and Francis Group, New York ISBN 0-415-30593-4

Best Regards,

Paul H.

I actually got a kick out of being called dangerous :-) --Sean Brunnock 17:36, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Intimidation

The reason why this discovery was not widely publicited is simple: INTIMIDATION. Just like Paul H. do here. Many scholars who testify the authenticity of Cambay findings are afraid of their reputation that can be questioned by people that hides behind their Phd or Harvard studies just like Michael Witzel that did not hesitate to write about it. And Witzel is not a MAINSTREAM ARCHAEOLOGIST.

Classic Excuse of Alternative Archaeologist

The claim that conventional archaeologists have not publicized the alleged "ruins" found beneath the Gulf of Cambay has nothing to do with intimidation. This claim is nothing more than one of the many excuses used by the proponents of fringe ideas to explain why conventional archaeologists ignore their pet theory or hypothesis. Questioning and pointing out the weaknesses in data and interpretations presented by a group of authors for a specific hypothesis does not constitute "intimidation". It is the normal give and take of science. The supporters of a specific idea are quite free to prepare and submit for publication their own paper or article, containing their arguments and physical evidence, why critics such as Dr. Witzel are wrong. Complaining about intimidation, neo-colonist bigotry, and malicious intentions toward India provide nothing in the way of either hard phyical evidence or logical arguments for the validity of the claim that undersea "ruins" have been found beneath the Gulf of Cambay. In fact, such complaints only have a negative effect of the reputation of the people making them. The lack of acceptance has nothing to do with imaginary intimidation. The NIOT Team has simply not provided the credible evidence and arguments to prove their ideas.

If the NIOT Team and their proponents want to be taken seriously, they simply need to publish credible evidence of their ideas, not on the web site of a journalist well-known for slip-shod research and sloppily argued books about Atlantis (in Antarctica) and other Lost Civilizations, but in a major, international journal, where their arguments and evidence are tested by peer-review and close scutiny by experienced archaeologists before publications. If the proponents of there being undersea "ruins" and 30,000 year-old pottery, could prepare a paper with sound logical arguments and solid, physical evidence for their hypothesis, there would be many International journals, i.e. "Science", "Nature", "Geoarchaeology", and so forth, which would readily publish it after going a through peer-review. If they had solid evidence of their ideas, the NIOT Team would not need to "publish" their ideas on a web site, which has absolutely no credibility among mainstream archaeologists.

If this hypothesis had any credibility, there would be a mad rush of marine archaeologists towards the Gulf of Cambay wanting to search its bottom given the spetacular nature of the alleged "ruins" and its associated pottery. An unknown undersea city and 30,000 year-old pottery are the type of stuff, which conventional archaeologists and their graduate stduents, dream about finding and making their reputations by writing papers about. If someone had credible evidence of either such find, far from "intimidating" them, conventional archaeologists would be wheeling and dealing and fighting with each other over who would join the NIOT Team to be part of the interdisciplinary team studying them. At this time, quite the opposite has happened.

Paul H.

Reply to Paul

I understand that a geologist, as a scientist, wants scientific proofs of new claims, but I wonder why to reject so vehemently EVERY aspect of the claim. For example you mention a 30000 year old city, but NIOT researchers never said that the cities they found were such as old, they found what European laboratories firstly dated as pottery. The structures of cities could be much latter. There are many aspects to study in future at Gulf of Cambay. I would suggest an International team, maybe from UNESCO to take part on an exploration there and a possible excavation, although I have no reason to doubt of NIOT statement that waters are turbid and did not let them take pictures. I supose there must be a scientific and technical solution to take more samples from there.

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First, I fail to see what is "vehement" about pointing out the numerous problems in non-peer article published in a popular web site devoted to discussing, often in an uncritical manner, various aspects of fringe /alternate archaeology from ancient Egyptian site in the Grand Canyon (Arizona) to Atlantis being located in India. Given the lack of peer review for the various articles published on this site and the uncritical acceptance of almost any argument that complements the beliefs of the owner of this web site, there needs to be a detailed examination any paper published on this site done before it is accepted as "fact" on the Wikipedia web site. It certainly damages the credibility of Wikipedia to have such unsubstantiated claims presented as fact before they have been published in an international journal where their arguments can be properly peer-reviewed on an international level and basic data, including pictures of petrographic thin sections of the items identified as pottery and other artifacts, published where they can independently evaluated by interested parties.

The problem is not the dating. It is whether or not what they claim to be pottery is really pottery. It makes a big difference whether they have a 30,000 year-old piece of pottery or a 30,000 year-old concretion. Given that in Figures 17 and 18 of the article posted to the Graham Hancock web site, they have grossly misidentified natural concretions as both artifacts and mandibles, I have no confidence that they have not also misidentified other concretions as “pottery”. That the materials comprising the so-called “pottery” are possibly of local origin proves nothing as natural concretions can also be of local origin. The presence of calcium carbonate in the alleged “pottery” is consistent with them being concretions as calcium carbonate quite commonly cements such concretions and is, in fact, quite common in a semi-arid environment. Also, the article stated they dated “sun-dried Pottery pieces”. This doe not make any sense as the moment “sun-dried pottery” became wet it would become mud again. Such pottery simply would not have survived being buried, being eroded by water, and moved the bottom of the Gulf of Cambay without being totally destroyed. From what they have published, it appears that only thing holding the alleged “pottery” together is the calcium carbonate. Sediment held together by calcium carbonate, to me, sounds a lot like the natural concretions they have misidentified in Figures 17 and 18 as “artifacts”.

I object to so many arguments of the identification of ancient ruins on the bottom of the Gulf of Cambay because they are based more on wishful thinking and speculation then anything approaching solid science. As in case of the pottery dated to 25,000 to 31,000 BP, they have not made a solid case for the ruins being what they claimed to be. Until, they publish more convincing arguments along with the supporting data, it is inappropriate to present their claims as anywhere close to being proven in Wikipedia.

Paul H.

To the writer of this article

Some of the people have a point when it comes to scientific intimidation among scientist. The discovery of the location of the city of Troy was highly criticized until it was finally proven. To the writer of this article I have a few questions. Are you a skeptic? Are there any new discoveries such as the new evidence of native North American migration at earlier times in history. The reason I ask this is that I believe for most scientist their reason for living is to completely disprove any new scientific theories no matter on what basis. If you could I'm sure there's a way to disprove any scientific reality if their was a will or enough group think or mob mentality that exists among many scientist today. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grecojdw (talk • contribs) 22 March 2006

I am not the writer of this article, but it seems to me that the major contributor here, Paul H., has been doing a corking job in detailing the particulars and (lack of any convincing) evidence for this as a supposed 'archaeological site'. Your own beliefs about scientists' motivations and 'intimidation' are entirely beside the point, as well as being demonstrably unfounded. Contrary to your claim fields of scientific endeavour such as archaeology are constantly being expanded and revised in the light of new materials; but equally there are many claims made which do not have sufficient convincing evidence available at the time to convince many or most field specialists- such as in this case, which Paul has documented in a quite balanced way. Take a quick internet search through sites such as Hancock's - you will see there are literally thousands of different claims in archaeology which are generally dismissed on (lack of) evidence or credibility as pseudoscientific, or at the very least not supported by evidence: do you think that all of these are potentially correct, and the only reason they are shunned by the scientific community is because of some cabal? What threshhold of evidence would you require for these to be identified as unproven?--cjllw | TALK 00:34, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Is this even notable?

I mean, it seems to be essentially a one-man-theory published on a website. This guy claims to have found pottery aged 31,000 years? That alone should be enough to conclude what we are dealing with here. The oldest known pottery is aged 10,000 years. We would be dealing not with Mesolithic, nor with Upper Paleolithic, but with Middle Paleolithic Pottery. He could just as well have claimed to have found spaceships or a printed edition of Wikipedia under the ocean. I mean, really... I could believe the Neolithic settlements of the 9th or 10th millennium (although the postulated continuity with the IVC sounded like terrible kookery), but this Paleolithic stuff now certainly merits the "pseudoarchaeology" category. dab (ᛏ) 17:37, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

There are BBC articles that are linked that verify the subject. Even if the discoverieshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Marine_archaeology_in_the_Gulf_of_Cambay turn out to be false, an article should remain outlining the "find". - User:One Salient Oversight

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/EE02Df02.html

http://www.hindunet.org/saraswati/khambat/khambat01.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1768109.stm

I'm pretty much a deletionist, but this seems pretty notable to me. Article needs cleanup though. ~Kylu (u|t) 18:41, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

http://www.newindpress.com/Sunday/sundayitems.asp?id=SEC20020817100019&eTitle=Columns&rLink=0

Any comments? SM GMT09:33 8th December 2006

A Question of "Fingerprints"

On 12 March 2009, mr. "75.83.201.131" wrote:

There is no explanation as to how the fingerprints got on the suspected pottery shards.

If a person reads the article carefully, they will find that it does not discuss real "fingerprints" as found on a person's fingers. Instead, the article uses "fingerprints" as a a generic term for any identifying characteristic or evidence of identity for a person or thing.Paul H. (talk) 21:31, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

If the pottery is genuine - should show some similarities to Harappan pottery

Hey, first time here. Going to be short. Is it entirely true what the headline quote says?

From reference n17: "Raman says there are certain essentially Harappan items - seals and black-and-red pottery ware - that are conspicuous by their absence among the artefacts collected from Khambat. Does the lack of Harappan stylistic evidence indicate that Khambat is a pre-Harappan site? "No," says Raman, "cultures do not exist in isolation. There has to be some interconnectedness. If this is pre-Harappan, then there should be some evidence here of what was to come later."

It's ok that cultures don't exist in isolation, but aren't we here talking about cultures far from each other chronologically speaking? Shouldn't just 1000 years be enough for similarities to be non-existent? And here we're perhaps talking even more than that. Especially if we suppose that it went below water long before the Harappan-civilization. The claim then to say that it HAS to be a connection, seems a little closed-minded to me? Note the question-marks, as I am no expert at this field.

Aleks W. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.108.69.160 (talk) 02:38, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Please avoid making bogus scientific claim

Science should be judged by science. I would request users to not make scientific claims on wiki talk page unless they have a peer reviewed journals to back those findings. I also find this trend quite disturbing that people use news-piece as a citation to back scientific claims, take for example citing [Bavadam, Lyla]. This should be avoided as far as possible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Subs.acnt (talk • contribs) 04:30, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Science currently states Stone Age lasted roughly 2.5 million years, and ended between 4500 and 2000 BC. Sets the end of paleolithic around 10.000 bc considering at that point humans "began to produce the earliest works of art and engage in religious and spiritual behavior such as burial and ritual".

At this time there're archeological evidences of more capacity than the mere fact of living in caves and using obsidiana tools prior to 10000 bc. The C-14 dating used to start the current theory proved to have flaws and suffered several corrections. New scientific methods indicate that archaeological sites are much older than originally thought around the globe. I don't understand why so much resistance from the academics to admit what's an obvious truth and that the current theory fell too short. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.138.118.231 (talk) 05:24, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

The resistance to the hypothesized submerged city at the bottom of the Gulf of Cambay is that these hypothetical ruins are based on a rather small collection of poorly documented and circumstantial evidence. This evidence includes objects argued to be geofacts; object and pieces of wood that lack any solid stratigraphic context because they were recovered by dredging; and seismic data that has neither been replicated nor collaborated by other investigators. From what I can find, nobody has been able to either replicate or independently substantiate the findings and interpretations of the initial research in the Gulf of Cambay. Until someone does that, scientists have good cause to be skeptical of them. Paul H. (talk) 03:51, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Footnote doesn't work

The footnote that is currently number two is to Frontline. But the link is to the current issue. When I searched the archives, using Frontline's search function, I got no hits using the first two words of the article in 2002. 211.225.33.104 (talk) 05:02, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

any information about the kind of wood, found and dated?

Is there any information about which kind of wood was found and dated? It would be great to include this information in the article.--217.13.79.226 (talk) 10:02, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

What did Agrival mean?

I'm very confused about the statement of Agrival. The wood was dated to round about the 8th century BC. He stated, the sealevel was lower 20.000 years ago. So what does he mean? That the sample must be older than the researching institutes stated?--217.13.79.226 (talk) 10:10, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

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Import

Import from Dvārakā, Look of anything important to be in article and missing.--Nizil (talk) 11:53, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Archaeological findings

Main article: Marine archeology in the Gulf of Khambhat

On May 19, 2001, India's science and technology minister Murli Manohar Joshi announced the finding of ruins in the Gulf of Khambhat. The ruins, known as the Gulf of Khambhat Cultural Complex (GKCC), are located on the seabed of a nine-kilometer stretch off the coast of Gujarat at a depth of about 40 m. The site was discovered by a team from the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) in December 2000 and investigated for six months with acoustic techniques.

A follow-up investigation was conducted by the same institute in November 2001, which included dredging to recover artifacts. Further underwater explorations were made in the Gulf of Khambhat site by the NIOT team from 2003 to 2004, and the samples, consisting of what was presumed to be pottery, were sent to laboratories in Oxford, UK and Hannover, Germany, as well as several institutions within India, to be dated. In a 2003 paper A.S. Gaur and Sundaresh of National Institute of Oceanography concluded: "The present excavation has thrown a light on the cultural sequence of Bet Dwarka Island. Around the 17th century B.C., late Harappan people had established their settlement, and they perhaps migrated from Nageshwar, which is close by. They have exploited marine resources such as fish and conch shells. It appears that Late Harappans of Bet Dwarka island had interaction with the Saurashtra Harappans and they might be visiting ports on the coast of the northern Saurashtra region. The scanty habitational deposit suggests that the site was abandoned after a couple of centuries. The island was again inhabited during the 8th century B.C. on the southeastern coast of the island."

However, inconclusive findings raised the possibility that the extremely old samples, as argued for many other artifacts recovered from the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay), are not man-made artifacts or potsherds, but rather geofacts and related objects of natural origin. Michael Witzel argues that the "ruins" are either natural rock formations or the result of faulty remote sensing equipment and that the "artifacts" recovered are either geofacts or foreign objects introduced to the site by the very strong tidal currents in the Gulf of Cambay. The side scan sonar equipment, used to image the bottom of the Gulf, may have been faulty and the claimed supporting evidence is purely circumstantial.

One of the main controversies is a piece of wood that was carbon dated to around 7500 BCE, a date which is used in arguments for a very early date for a city here. Dr. D.P. Agrawal, chairman of the Paleoclimate Group and founder of Carbon-14 testing facilities in India, stated in an article in Frontline Magazine that the piece was dated twice, at separate laboratories. The NGRI in Hyderabad returned a date of 7190 BC and the BSIP in Hannover returned a date of 7545-7490 BC. Some archeologists, Agrawal in particular, contend that the discovery of an ancient piece of wood does not imply the discovery of an ancient civilization. Agrawal argues that the wood piece is a common find, given that 20,000 years ago the Arabian Sea was 100 meters lower than its current level and that the gradual sea level rise submerged entire forests.

References

updates

This serious archeology paper explores marine anchors at coast of GOK. Add useful info to article. [1]

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When was the site above sea level?

Why does yhe dating in this article only gocus on artifacts? 2601:14A:C300:558:8905:5EAE:C28A:27D2 (talk) 07:15, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

New title should have lower case "archaeology".

I've no idea what that was changed. Doug Weller talk 17:08, 11 December 2023 (UTC)