A claim of epic proportions met its match in peer review, sending archaeologists back to square one.

A published study claiming the Indonesian pyramid Gunung Padang was crafted by humans 27,000 years ago was retracted by publishers.

The study’s authors fight the retraction, but the archeological community backs it.

Radiocarbon dating has proved the key sticking point.

The fight over the science of an ancient Indonesian landmark has taken another turn in the archeological community—a controversial October 2023 study claiming that Gunung Padang is a pyramid created by humans 27,000 years ago was recently fully retracted from Wiley, the publishers of the journal Archaeological Prospection.

Natawidjaja and his team aren’t budging. They claim the soil samples “have been unequivocally established as man-made constructions” that feature three distinct phases of construction. They claim the shapes, composition, and arrangement of the stone bolsters the argument.