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Underground civilizations

Cainkane1

Philosopher
Cainkane1
Joined
Jul 16, 2005
Messages
9,011
Location
The great American southeast
On many paranormal sites you see references to underground civilizations. Does anyone in here know of underground societies that had their whole culture underground. I have seen large elaborate underground structures on TV but has there ever been or is there currently an entire civilization that was actually living underground all the time? The hollow earth stories are complete woo of course.
 
I doubt it. They'd need to get food, and vitamin D from the sun. At least some of them would have to go to the surface.

In South Australia, there's a town called Coober Pedy in which lots of people's houses are dug into the ground to escape the heat. But I doubt that counts.
 
To an untrained eye Maresha/ or aka Beth Guvrin/Bet Guvrin/Bet Govrin/Beit Govrin can be seen as an underground civilisation. Look at the pictures of the oil presses and the columbariums used for pigeon breeding.

It is literally a cool place in Isreal and should not be missed when you are there.
 
As far as I know, there are none and personally I doubt there has ever been one. Underground habitations are possible and if memory does not fails me, I read something about an early Christian community whith several undergound levels. But these folks would still have to get out of their holes to obtain food (how could they have an underground farm?). Not to mention the accumulation of various types of garbage (food remains, pee and poop included) that have to be somehow removed.

Note also that quite often ancient "underground" habitations were actually dug at cliff faces, such as Petra.

Anyway, consider the following:
- If you are digging a tunnel, the material you removed (that by the way will have a larger volume than the tunnel) will have to be left somewhere. This is a classic "surface fingerprint" of undergound mines; an underground city would be surrounded by piles of such waste material.
- A cavern (natural or not) big enough to hold a self-sustainable community would have to be pretty huge. Besides the obvious structural challenges to keep the integrity of such a void, chances are it would create a weird geophysical (gravimetric and possibly magnetometric) anomaly. Depending on its location, regional aerogeophysical surveys could have detected such hypothetic structure.
- Our physiology needs sunlight; our psichology also needs sunlight (and open spaces).
- Assuming the above issues were somehow solved, you still remain with the problems on how to provide food, deal with waste and have an environment suitable for living. Of course theoretically your underground population could just buy their food from their neighbours. But what about illumination? OK, light some fires, but what about air circulation? And the fuel (wood and oil) for the fires? Buy again? To sum up, it would, in my opinion be very hard if not impossible to keep an underground village with ancient technology; actually I think even with early XX century technology odds are it would be a failure...
 
Central Anatolia is repleat with numerous underground "cities"...essentially, hiding areas carved into the Tufa rock. These were multi-storied affairs (one I visited had 18 known levels) and miles of corridors. They were designed to protect the local population and could be used for a couple of months. However, they were not designed to be permanent. They had water systems and air vents and large food and animal storage areas, but eventually the people would return to the surface once the invaders had passed over. Anyway, if you ever get to Turkey, I highly recommend a visist to Cappadocia...the caves and underground cities are really amazing and beautiful.
 
Cainkane1 said:
On many paranormal sites you see references to underground civilizations. Does anyone in here know of underground societies that had their whole culture underground. I have seen large elaborate underground structures on TV but has there ever been or is there currently an entire civilization that was actually living underground all the time? The hollow earth stories are complete woo of course.
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Ants.
 
So, WHY would an entire civilization go underground, completely and forever, never to see the light of day? How would it even be possible with pre-industrial technology, even if you factor out health and sanitation? Come to think of it, even post-industrial technology wouldn't free you from the need to dispose of industrial waste (slag, gasses, etc).
 
Cainkane1 said:
On many paranormal sites you see references to underground civilizations. Does anyone in here know of underground societies that had their whole culture underground. I have seen large elaborate underground structures on TV but has there ever been or is there currently an entire civilization that was actually living underground all the time? The hollow earth stories are complete woo of course.
Click to expand...

NO. The primary para is (since late 40's/early '50s (I first heard it in '55 or 6)
the Deros (Abandonderos) of Ray Palmer fame.

http://users.netropolis.net/moorish/page12.htm (crazies site)

http://www.burlingtonnews.net/alienraces2.html (same article with slight changes - esp. first para)

if really interested, www.dogpile.com , enter Abandonderos, hit fetch - German and French there also.

That NO at the beginning is NOT NO it is not woo - it is woo full on. NO there are no fully underground civilizations on Earth,
 
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Beady said:
Nope. They depend on the surface for food, at the very least.
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Technically untrue. Leafcutter ants in South America actually grow their own fungus underground and use it for food. They do, however, rely on the leaves that they cut (hence their name) as fodder for this fungus, and they get those leaves from above the surface. So my point is equally blown out of the water. (It wasn't really a serious suggestion anyway, because ants hardly qualify as a "civilization.")
 
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