Controversial pyramid paper retracted when authors turn out to have radiocarbon-dated nearby dirt.
A journal has retracted, over the objections of the authors, a controversial 2023 paper claiming a dig site in Indonesia is home to the largest pyramid built by humans. The work was led by the Indonesian archeologist Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, of the Research Center for Natural Disasters in Bandung.
Hilman has been working at the site in Java for many years in his quest to prove it contains the ruins of a massive pyramid built by an advanced culture between 9,000 and 27,000 years ago. Hilman has also tried to link the site to the lost city of Atlantis.
The paper, “Geo-Archaeological prospecting of Gunung Padang buried prehistoric pyramid in West Java, Indonesia”, attracted mounds of critical attention when it appeared last October in Archaeological Prospection, a Wiley title. Among the skeptics was Flint Dibble, an archeologist who reviewed the research on his YouTube channel in February.
As the retraction notice states, the dating appears to have been fatally flawed:
"Following publication of this article, concerns were raised by third parties with expertise in geophysics, archaeology, and radiocarbon dating, about the conclusions drawn by the authors based on the evidence reported. The publisher and the Co-Editors-in-Chief have investigated these concerns and have concluded that the article contains a major error. This error, which was not identified during peer review, is that the radiocarbon dating was applied to soil samples that were not associated with any artifacts or features that could be reliably interpreted as anthropogenic or “man-made.” Therefore, the interpretation that the site is an ancient pyramid built 9000 or more years ago is incorrect, and the article must be retracted."
More: retractionwatch.com/2024/03/20/controversial-pyramid-paper-retracted-when-authors-turn-out-to-have-radiocarbon-dated-nearby-dirt/
The Pyramid Scheme of Gunung Padang. A Public Peer Review With Dr. Lutfi Yondri and Harry Sofian
Flint Dibble writes: In this discussion, we critically examine the evidence for a pyramid dating to the stone age in the recent article by Danny Hilman Natawidjaja and colleagues. The site of Gunung Padang has been featured in several pseudoarchaeological TV shows, books, YouTube videos, and podcasts and I wanted to make sure to provide here a thorough response from local archaeologists who know about the site and the methods.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxaHo3V4lGg&t=4s
The paper they peer reviewed is: Hilman Natawidjaja et al. 2023. 'Geo-archaeological prospecting of Gunung Padang buried prehistoric pyramid in West Java, Indonesia' Archaeological Prospection.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/arp.1912
See also the thread by Flint Dibble (Twitter login required): twitter.com/FlintDibble/status/1770428110116196596
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