Imagine being a trained archaeologist and finding out that some random furniture conservator solved a giant mystery around cave paintings using Google searches and some free time. I'm as equally impressed by this guy's deductive reasoning as I am disappointed in the entire field of archeology for not making this connection prior.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-64162799
A London furniture conservator has been credited with a crucial discovery that has helped understand why Ice Age hunter-gatherers drew cave paintings.
Ben Bacon analysed 20,000-year-old markings on the drawings, concluding they could refer to a lunar calendar.
It led to a specialist team proving early Europeans made notes about the timing of animals' reproductive cycles.
He spent numerous hours on the internet and in the British Library consulting pictures of cave paintings
and "amassed as much data as possible and began looking for repeating patterns".
With his research advancing, he brought in friends and senior academics. They encouraged him to continue with his investigations
despite Mr Bacon being "effectively a person off the street".