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/wetwiredThis 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.comhttps://twitter.com/Cult_Archaeohttps://bsky.app/profile/cultarchaeo.bsky.socialFollow Bill Farley:https://linktr.ee/archaeologytubehttps://twitter.com/ArchaeologyGamehttps://bsky.app/profile/archaeologytube.bsky.socialSome reading:Natawidjaja et al. 2023 Geo-archaeological prospecting of Gunung Padang buried prehistoric pyramid in West Java, Indonesia in Archaeological Prospectionhttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/arp.1912Since 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-wThe 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.1915Indonesia’s Own ‘Pyramid’: The Imagined Past and Nationalism of Gunung Padang by Dian Sulistyowatihttps://www.researchgate.net/publication/348911628_INDONESIA%27S_OWN_%27PYRAMID%27_THE_IMAGINED_PAST_AND_NATIONALISM_OF_GUNUNG_PADANGMusic:Airglow - Spliff and Wesson (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.enFor $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/wetwiredCatch up with us on the Wetwired Discord.https://discord.gg/fr62mpUy5cFollow us:Twitter at https://twitter.com/wetwiredpodInstagram at https://instagram.com/wetwiredpodBluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/wetwired.bsky.socialhttps://patreon.com/wetwired