> In response to which Graham Hancock slowly sits back in his chair and breathes a sigh of victorious relief.

Honestly, he didn't need vindication, but I'm glad for everything Graham has had to put up with his entire career as a JOURNALIST, not and archaeologist, that he finally gets the funding he needs to keep doing his work.

I've been reading America Before on long trips and the way he describes his work on podcasts like JRE make me realize just how terribly ossified academia has become--it's heresay to question the per-established POV. It's no longer, or perhaps never has been in my lifetime, about genuine curiosity and the leap into trying to explain the unknown with the most rigorous and methodical practices (scientific method) when careers are made and lost on parroting and upholding Conventional wisdom above all else. His investigative work in Egyptology was eye opening to me as it reminded me so much of my work in Biology/Chemistry.

I remember sitting in my Biohem lass listening to my professor (who I now consider a friend) describe Walter and Cricks work, and the infamous LSD trip, and telling us of all the women Radio Crystolgraphers (Lindsay, Broomhead, Franklin) who contributed to the ability to arrive to the double helix structure---he too was a crystolographer and used their work for his research. It also entered my mind how Madam Currie is seen as the discoverer of Radioactive particles, while her husband Pierre who also died, is almost never mentioned.

What I'm saying is that narratives are not drawn on division of sex, but rather a seductive and captivating narrative that help lend authority to a specific origin of something, instead of the messy reality that we really have no idea what most of what or where we've come and that things are oftendiscovered by accident (Phleming with penicillin being the most commonly told). And that having a cohesive and seemingly palatable story told from authoritative voices about 'how things really are' gives us a false sense of confidence that lets us accept things as they are.

Graham put's it incredibly eloquently when he says 'we are a Species with amnesia.'

Also worth noting is that Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, is also where the first traces of agriculture are found, which is a pre-requisite for a division of labour and a surplus of food in order to create this kind of specialization to create such immense monoliths.

Gunung Pedang in Indonesia is another mega monolith site that may be even older than this site which is really intriguing, because it makes more sense given that the Indonesia is mainly comprised of so many Islands but still has one of the largest populations in all of the World.