Flint Dibble on archaeology: what the evidence says · JRE #2136
SUBJECT: ARCHAEOLOGY
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
and when you go down and you take up soil samples associated with that stonework you find that they date back to about 25,000 years ago. None of those cores came from that tunnel or chamber or any of those features that they described.
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
The 2023 Archaeological Prospection paper by Natawidjaja and colleagues claimed Gunung Padang was a pyramid built as far back as roughly 25,000 to 27,000 years ago, based on radiocarbon dates from soil in cores drilled through the hill. The journal formally retracted the paper in 2024 after concluding it contained a major error: the radiocarbon dating was applied to soil samples that were not associated with any artifacts or features that could be reliably interpreted as man-made. Experts noted the ancient dates were likely accurate for the soil itself but carried no hallmarks of human activity such as charcoal or bone, so they could not be tied to any constructed tunnel, chamber, or wall. Dibble himself made this point with the analogy that coring deep beneath the Palace of Westminster could return a 40,000-year-old date without meaning the building is that old. Dibble's statement that the dated cores did not come from the described features accurately reflects the documented basis for the retraction.