00:00.00 kinkella Hello and welcome back to the pseudo archeology podcast episode 117 and we have been talking about the younger Dryas comet impact hypothesis and at this point I think we really want to. Talk more specifically about the comet so in the previous section. We talked about the younger dryas in the background to that now. What about the comet all right I first heard about this I would say somewhere around 2000 or so 2001 I don't know somewhere in there. There was an article in American Antiquity I believe which is a major archeology publication. You might argue. It's kind of the big mama of archeology publications and there was an article about. The evidence for a comet impact. 01:01.69 kinkella Here Wait let me redo some of this I lost my Mojo because I had to pause because I had to take a drink of water or wait you guys all right I'm going to roll back in On. Um. On the hearing about the come in tooth at 2000? um. 01:24.98 kinkella I first heard about this in around two thousand maybe two thousand and one and there was an article in american antiquity which is the big mama publication of the society of american archeology right it's kind of the big one so this is a serious scientific ah hypothesis and they found some really good evidence that a comet had hit the earth. At around this time right and they extrapolated from that and said hey maybe this affected the megafauna. Um, maybe this had to do with the younger dryas right? And that's how science works they found evidence for. Comet impact and then they kind of ran with it. So no harm no foul what I would say about the comet impact hypothesis as the years have gone on in the past twenty years that it has gotten weaker over time now I am not to here to tell you that. It's a stupid idea or something or that it didn't happen. Do I think that a comet hit the earth around that time sure I think there's decent evidence for something like that happening somewhere in the northern hemisphere like in Greenland or in that neck of the woods. But. 02:51.73 kinkella As we talked about before in sort of outlining our questions. What was the true impact of the comment. Ah the impact of the comet I know I had to. 03:09.39 kinkella It's a lot less I think than we originally thought and this is why you don't really see one big huge creator right? We never want to think about this as the same as the story of the dinosaurs where comet hits and then there's a huge bill to pay. On that one. That's that's not what we're seeing here while I can be fine with some of the evidence in terms of that the comet hit. It's okay, what came after that and I would say it's not a huge deal is what came after that I think things like. When we were simply talking about the Atlantic conveyor belt that explains what happened way better than a comet now could a comet be a part of this story sure and I do think when you look at the data and again the data is kind of sparse. It's hard to deal with the northern hemisphere seems. Much more affected by this stuff than the southern hemisphere so you could say hey while this cooling trend was naturally happening. There was also this comet that hit in the northern hemisphere and it did disrupt some things in the northern hemisphere area as well. So. You kind of have yes to both answers. You know? Yes There's a atlantic conveyor belt that's changing the temperature and yes, a comet or some comet fragments hit and ah built upon that but I would not say that the data shows us that the comet's like the prime mover meaning that. 04:41.81 kinkella It wasn't like the earth was doing just fine then a comet hit and everything fell apart. It's not like that I I think that's a disingenuous way of looking at this when we look at the other factors like the death of the megafauna if we look close. Some of them were already dying out before the younger dryas and some of them lived through the younger dryas and then died out a bit later so again, it might be something that affected the dying off of the megafauna but it wasn't like all the megafauna were great comet hit everyone died. Not like that. That's that's disingenuous to the data. Also if you're looking at Clovis you know there? Ah clovis people did the comet effect clovis culture in North America and I would say again Clovis sites are so rare you guys. It's just so hard to say but. 05:39.19 kinkella Over time population grew not shrank so I don't think it did anything in terms of the people there. You could also talk about did clovis culture aid in taking out the megafauna and I think. The answer is sure to a degree. That's another one that we give too much attention to the idea that early clovis hunters hunted out all the woolly mammos or something like that. Obviously if you have human beings introduced where there were no human beings before and human beings are now killing woolly mammos. Where they weren't killed killed before that obviously is a factor but there's only so many people in North America at the time I don't think they're laying waste to all the mega fauna but it's just another factor you see I love talking about this because this is how archeology really works. You have a series of questions and you have a series of data points and you're trying to match them and it is always of necessity a bit awkward and that's okay, right? Even though they came on big and strong. With the comet impact theory about twenty years ago it's gotten a little more weak over time. But that's all right? You know we might find some more data in a decade or 2 that gives it a little more strength but overall you can't discount that the temperature of the atlantic ocean. 07:15.77 kinkella Makes a huge difference in all this right? So that's all these things are what are driving us forward and that's the fun part now if we look close what we want to know is what is the actual evidence for the comet itself like I touched on before it's not like we have some big huge crater that we can point to. You know what? I mean so that's kind of out. It's not necessarily necessary. You know hey Comma could hit in the ocean you know are these kind of things. It's true or you can have the comet basically explode in the atmosphere. And then kind of rain down its bits and pieces in a generalized area so you won't have one huge crater necessarily but you'll basically have a shock wave that destroys a bunch of stuff those are called a meteor air burst and the most famous one is the Toguska event. Of 198 and I bet a lot of you have heard about this It's the one where in Russia in Siberia in 198 luckily very few people live there. They think that only maybe a handful of people died on order of you know, 3 or 4 this kind of thing but it was a meteor that was like the better. The better part of. Two hundred feet wide isn't that crazy but it came into the atmosphere and as it burns up the the rock itself exploded right? So you're gonna have this huge shock shock wave and that's where they were just a ton of flattened trees right for miles and miles you have these just flattened trees. 08:49.49 kinkella And of course that affects that localized area a little bit but it's not like for years after that we had global devastation or something. It's localized so I don't mind thinking of the comet from thirteen thousand years ago something like that again, it's localized and yeah sure the megafauna in that area. Yeah, they weren't doing too well but it's not a worldwide phenomenon. 09:20.94 kinkella As with the ah comet that did the dinosaurs in. We're also going to look for layers in the earth of certain things like certain types of crystals certain types of. Elements these kinds of things that only come with comets or only come with comet impacts and they have found some of those types of things I won't get into the specifics. It's pretty damn sciencey. You know I agree with it like nanoparticles I forget you know what? what they're called. But. Basically these are signatures of comet impact and they have found some of that some of the data has been called into question over time. Ah, this is definitely not a worldwide phenomenon right? But in some of the areas and. Think I mean we'll see what the next year or 2 or 5 brings I I think the data seems okay to me like good enough to be like okay I see what you're saying you know I I could be proven wrong in a year but it's not super super solid I'll I'll give them that it's like okay you know. So we do see general trends of of something localized happening. Another thing that you will hear that pseudor archeologists bring up and we'll get into the whole pseudo archeology thing in a minute is the black mat. Oh my god not the black mat. 10:49.00 kinkella It sounds like a super villain. Oh my god I've been chased by the black mat. Um the black mat. So what is the black mat and I this is one thing I would hear suud archeologist say well what about the black Mat King Keller oh I'll tell you about the black mat. Um. What the black Matt is laughing. It's it's an organic layer of that basically means you know vegetation and this kind of stuff that you're going to find at around that level around that 13000 year level but it is by no means worldwide you just find it in a. Couple localized areas and was it meme it just means that there was vegetation there you know, but since it's black sometimes if you want to take it to the extreme. You're like oh it's because it's burned because of the huge shockwave of the comet that went worldwide you know and that's that's where we ruin everything. The black mat. Um, you know is this evidence of the comment. It's like who knows it's it's just sort of silly. It's a way overdone thing this layer and they will say in these. 12:03.29 kinkella Little spots where they found the black mat they're like well you only find megafauna below the black mat and there's no megafauna above the black mat meaning that the you know comet did in all the megafauna and that evidence you guys that evidence like weak. You know it's just. Super localized. It doesn't really say too much except about that one area. It's like okay, yeah, yeah, there weren't any woolly mamos in this four hundred acre parcel okay um wait let me resay that. 12:44.16 kinkella It's like yeah ok, there weren't any woolly mammoths in this four hundred acre parcel but let me look at the rest of the earth you know and that's the problem with Pseudo Archeology it's a perfect example of cherry picked dishonest. Data points right? which brings us to when we return the pseudo archeology of the younger dryas and the comet impact hypothesis.