Where did the world's first civilization appear?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

You mean they'd worked out that a Scorpio would never get on with a Capricorn as far back as 4000BC? Astonishing.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by our_man
Fertile Crescent was where Civilization began. Although the Irish were up to some serious stuff over 5,000 years ago with the construction of Newgrange, whose construction obviously indicated a culture which had a deep understanding of astrology.

I have news for you bud, these people weren't Irish, ie not Celtic.

[TCO]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
b) The first civilisation is usually ascribed to the eastern Mediterranean region, but not to the Middle East.

Where in the Eastern Med? I can think of parts of the Eastern Med (Lebanon) that are also parts of the ME. Of course Greece would be Eastern Med but not ME. Could you be more precise, Mr. Physicist?

[our_man]

Good point Sikander, I forgot Celtic immigration only happened at a later stage

Still, they probably did do some breeding with the Celts, so some of their genes are still bouncing around in the population!

As a matter of interest, do you happen to know what group did colonize Ireland befor the Celts?

[Lars-E]

Sumer.

See History Begins at Sumer : Thirty-Nine 'Firsts' in Recorded History, by Samuel Noah Kramer, Hiroshi Tanaka

Book cover

I checked Middle East; I guess Sumer can pass as Middle East.

[Saint Marcus]

The Tiahuanaco theory seems to be based around some assumptions about both the intent and precision of the builders of that city. Reasonable archaeologists still date it to the first few centuries AD.

Only about 3 to 4% of the site has been researched yet. Hard to put a date on it already.

Anyway, what do you all think of the connection between new world and old world civilizations (tabaco and cocaine found in egyptian mummies)?


Also, the Indus valley civilizations are believed to first appeared 6000-8000BC.


plus, from google: CNN.com - World's oldest cities were Indian - January 17, 2002. sadly, the link didn't work

[Ethelred]

I go for Jericho as the worlds oldest walled city.

The oldest capital city in the world is also in the Middle East. Damascus, 6000 years.

Oldest epic poem Gilgamesh. Sumeria.

Oldest Alphabet. Sumeria.

The Middle East gets a another nod with Sumeria. Worlds oldest written recipe for BEER.


The fact that I don't drink beer doesn't change the significance.

[MORON]

It existed in Sid's mind....

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by Chris 62
Sumer is the oldest, depending on what defines civilization.

Civilization is defined as:

1.An advanced state of intellectual, cultural, and material development in human society, marked by progress in the arts and sciences, the extensive use of record-keeping, including writing, and the appearance of complex political and social institutions.
2.The type of culture and society developed by a particular nation or region or in a particular epoch: Mayan civilization; the civilization of ancient Rome.
3.The act or process of civilizing or reaching a civilized state.
4.Cultural or intellectual refinement; good taste.

Of the ancients, Sumer is the first to fit these parameters.

That's what my history book says (and that was what was on the test ).

[Sikander]

Originally posted by our_man
Good point Sikander, I forgot Celtic immigration only happened at a later stage

Still, they probably did do some breeding with the Celts, so some of their genes are still bouncing around in the population!

As a matter of interest, do you happen to know what group did colonize Ireland befor the Celts?

They are sometimes called the Iberians IIRC. They were smaller and darker than the Celts, and it is said that the 'little people' myths refer to them. They were more advanced than the Celts in some ways (astronomy / astrology, religion). Druidism was probably their baby to begin with, though it was adopted and spread by the Celts to their cousins in Gaul.

[Saint Marcus]

The Tiahuanaco theory seems to be based around some assumptions about both the intent and precision of the builders of that city. Reasonable archaeologists still date it to the first few centuries AD.

There are ancient port facilities at the Tiahuanaco site, yet there's not water nearby, nor was there any water in the "first few centuries AD". The last time the waterlevel reached the site was....10,000 to 13,000 years ago.

[Chris 62]

Here are some links to Tiahuanaco, and the theories about it:

http://www.thule.org/tiahuanaco.html

http://emuseum.mnsu.edu/prehistory/l...iahuanaco.html

http://www.crystalinks.com/tiahuanaco.html

A quick look will show that nobody agrees on the date it was founded, or on the age of the ruins.

[Saint Marcus]

Same with the Sphinx and the Giza pyramids

[Chris 62]

I recently heard it put forth that the Sphinx is much older then the Pyramids, and has water damage!

Of course, none of this can be proved.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

It's just about impossible to date the Sphinx- it's carved out of bedrock. The Pyramids are a different matter.

[Chris 62]

I wonder how old it really is.

Could there have been an age of man before the last ice age?

[Ethelred]

Its likely the Sphinx was a preexisting rock formation that the Egyptians carved into the Sphinx. Thus accounting for the ancient water damage.

The stuff about these allegedly 10,000 year old civs is all generated by the same nonsense.

Atlantis. As complete a crock as ever was. There is exactly one source for Atlantis and that is Plato. He didn't even finish his story so we don't know if it was intended to be story or something pertaining to a real event.

The rest of the evidence for Atlanitis comes from rather more dubious sources. Edgar Cayce the sleeping Phraud is the one that kicked this stuff off.

Some evidence.

It does sell a lot of books. Which I guess helps pay for more nonsense masquerading as science.

[Adalbertus]

Atlantis. As complete a crock as ever was. There is exactly one source for Atlantis and that is Plato. He didn't even finish his story so we don't know if it was intended to be story or something pertaining to a real event.

Two things:
Before Plato went philosopher, he was interested in writing plays. That's also a reason for him to put everything in the form of a dialogue. In ancient times, even what we should consider as a serious, scientific or philosophical discourse had a nice story around it to make it more readable. So it's well possible that Plato just made Atlantis up for himself. Or he adopted an ancient myth. So we come to the second point:

Troy was regarded as a myth until Schliemann believed the Ilias and went to discover it. The rich city of Vineta was regarded as a myth, in fact it isn't, it had been located I think at the baltic sea. (Vineta was struck by a flood and then the Danish invaded and finished off).

But, even if Atlantis may have been reality, it doesn't work for discussing anything on ancient civilizations because we don't know more than myths.

There are ancient port facilities at the Tiahuanaco site, yet there's not water nearby, nor was there any water in the "first few centuries AD". The last time the waterlevel reached the site was....10,000 to 13,000 years ago.

To what I know, man settled the Americas, going from north to south, between 20,000 and 10,000 years ago. A few thousand years would be an extremely short time to create a high civilization from when you just arrived in the paleolithic (older stone age, no agriculture, no pottery, no metals, domesticized animals: dog only). And if they had this high a culture 10,000 years ago I would wonder why they hadn't airplanes by 1000 BC? A glaciale argument would be difficult to set up because the area of Tiahuanaco was sufficiently close to the equator to be warm enough for men to easily adapt. And living high in the mountains you just step down and have it more as you want to.

If the "port structures" are correctly identified as such, it might be rather possible that they made canals for easier transport. In southern Germany, IIRC around 500 BC there was a culture who tried their best to connect rivers and seas by canals. If the environment gives it (I don't know South America or the site of Tiahuanaco), there is no reason why the locals should not have tried it.

[Saint Marcus]

So it's well possible that Plato just made Atlantis up for himself.

Plato did not make up the legend/myth of Atlantis. He based it on older text, plus even most modern archeologists believe the place existed somewhere (popular theory is that it was an east med island).

[Gatekeeper]

Originally posted by Ethelred
Its likely the Sphinx was a preexisting rock formation that the Egyptians carved into the Sphinx. Thus accounting for the ancient water damage.

The stuff about these allegedly 10,000 year old civs is all generated by the same nonsense.

Atlantis. As complete a crock as ever was. There is exactly one source for Atlantis and that is Plato. He didn't even finish his story so we don't know if it was intended to be story or something pertaining to a real event.

The rest of the evidence for Atlanitis comes from rather more dubious sources. Edgar Cayce the sleeping Phraud is the one that kicked this stuff off.

Some evidence.

It does sell a lot of books. Which I guess helps pay for more nonsense masquerading as science.

I can only wonder how you might have initially reacted when Copernicus presented his "heretical" findings to the public and Catholic Church way back when the "enlightened" folks were positive everything in the cosmos was centered on a measly planet known as Earth.

All myths and legends have at, the very least, a kernal of truth buried in them somewhere. It's never wise to just dismiss them as figments of someone's fevered imagination.

Gatekeeper

[Ethelred]

All myths and legends have at, the very least, a kernal of truth buried in them somewhere.

Legends yes. Some myths. But Atlantis started as a story. There is not one single mention of it anywhere prior to the Plato fragment. This is like saying the someone tried to send men to the moon by artillary shell in the 1800s because Jules Verne made up a story about that.

Copernicus had evidence, math, logic, and the world and the Sun itself on his side. On Atlantis we have a story and the Sleeping Con. There is a difference between an open mind and a mind empty of analysis.

When someone gives some evidence then I will begin to change on this. At present there is not one single bit of evidence to support the Atlantis story. It makes no sense either.

There is no need to hypothesize unicorns when the evidence shows horses and no horns.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus


Plato did not make up the legend/myth of Atlantis. He based it on older text, plus even most modern archeologists believe the place existed somewhere (popular theory is that it was an east med island).

There is no such older text. Plato did not claim it was from an older text. He claimed to overhear a story as a child.

Most modern archeologists know the odds are vitually zero that Atlantis existed.

If you are thinking of Santorini/Thera that is different. Santornini was not an advanced civilization. Just one the was well off for its time. It was destroyed around 1470 BC hardly the time the Atlantis believers are claiming for the Lake Titicaca city.

There is a remote possibility that the catastophic explosion of Thera was the basis of Atlantis but there really isn't much to back that. If there was story or legend about we don't have any record of it today. That is possible. There was no written record of it though. Not in Agean and there isn't a record in Egypt where one would be expected. Perhaps some indication in Egypt will show up in the future. Not in the Agean. They went illiterate. The Greeks when to far into a dark age they lost their writing. They came without an entirely different alphabet.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by GP


Where in the Eastern Med? I can think of parts of the Eastern Med (Lebanon) that are also parts of the ME. Of course Greece would be Eastern Med but not ME. Could you be more precise, Mr. Physicist?

I suppose I should have used the words "not necessarily", Mr. Chemist cum Ski Instructor.

[TCO]

so where specifically?

[KrazyHorse]

I wouldn't rule out entirely some of the islands in the Med, or sites in the Near East and Egypt. They're usually ascribed to a later period than the sites in the fertile crescent, but the difference is only a matter of a couple of hundred years on a timescale approaching 7 or 8 thousand. I'm not convinced they've unearthed every ancient city in any of those regions.

[Gatekeeper]

Originally posted by Ethelred
Legends yes. Some myths. But Atlantis started as a story. There is not one single mention of it anywhere prior to the Plato fragment. This is like saying the someone tried to send men to the moon by artillary shell in the 1800s because Jules Verne made up a story about that.

I suppose we will never know if Plato created Atlantis as a figment of his own mind, or if he simply took stories about catastrophes in humanity's past and simply tagged said folk stories, myths and legends as his Atlantis story. (With some additions that his Greek audience would appreciate.)

Of course, that also opens another avenue: What if, indeed, Plato was only telling another version of a catastrophe(s) in humanity's past that were so indelible it/they left some sort of racial memory.

There is a difference between an open mind and a mind empty of analysis.

There's also the closed mind. And the mind somewhere between open and empty.

When someone gives some evidence then I will begin to change on this. At present there is not one single bit of evidence to support the Atlantis story. It makes no sense either.

If it's taken literally then, no, I don't believe the Atlantis story either. But I don't take it literally. I look at the elements it contains — catastrophe, loss of a great home, few survivors — and apply them to other stories from other peoples across Earth. That's when you begin to see some similarities, despite geographical, cultural and religious differences among peoples. Which, of course, begs more questions.

One example would be the story of Noah's Ark. That Biblical story seems to have roots in Gilgamesh. Then you have totally unrelated peoples who also have their own version of a Noah's Ark story. Interesting at some intellectual level, isn't it?

Gatekeeper

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Sikander
They are sometimes called the Iberians IIRC. They were smaller and darker than the Celts, and it is said that the 'little people' myths refer to them.

The Fomorians.

Chris, parts of the Sphynx are indeed, very, very old, since it is a rock outcropping. However, the Sphynx as we know it isn't that old, and dates to Ancient Egypt (when, I don't know). It is believed that the old rock outcropping was also significant to the people who lived there, and they carved it and built a chamber in it. The later parts of the Sphynx are physical additions, not part of the native stone.

[TCO]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
b) The first civilisation is usually ascribed to the eastern Mediterranean region, but not to the Middle East.

So if it's supposed to be in the eastern Med, where in the eastern Med?

[Adalbertus]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
b) The first civilisation is usually ascribed to the eastern Mediterranean region, but not to the Middle East.

I think it's futile to distinguish between regions in the fertile crescent (ranging from eastern Mediterranean region, Isreal, to Euphrat and Tigris, now Iraq). It is even not useful to see Egypt as too separated. Those people all were in loose contact. They had different tastes in art, different writing system, different native language, but this doesn't mean they were isolated. When the Sumerans start giving sealed letters to messengers instead of telling them the message, you can be sure that it takes 10 or 20 years at most until the Egyptians start to do the same. This cannot be resolved by our historians.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper

Of course, that also opens another avenue: What if, indeed, Plato was only telling another version of a catastrophe(s) in humanity's past that were so indelible it/they left some sort of racial memory.

What if apples were oranges and race cars made lemonade?

Stories and legends are real in the sense they exist and we can read them and listen to them. Racial memmory is an idea with no route of functionality. We have genes. They don't have any sign of storing data on acient myths.

There's also the closed mind. And the mind somewhere between open and empty.

Read your own sig. Take it to heart.

Don't pretend I have a closed mind for not believing the Atlantis stuff without a shred of evidence to support it. Am I also supposed to believe the Jews came to America and had a civilization that left no traces yet had horses and chariots and were the anscestors of the Amerinds, simply because so many do believe that fairy story?

As I said and you ignored. When I see some evidence that will change things. Till then there is nothing but a story. I like stories. I also like credibitility.

If it's taken literally then, no, I don't believe the Atlantis story either.

Then you must have a closed mind. Based on your reply to me anyway. By applying what you just said about me.

But I don't take it literally. I look at the elements it contains — catastrophe, loss of a great home, few survivors — and apply them to other stories from other peoples across Earth. That's when you begin to see some similarities, despite geographical, cultural and religious differences among peoples. Which, of course, begs more questions.

One example would be the story of Noah's Ark. That Biblical story seems to have roots in Gilgamesh. Then you have totally unrelated peoples who also have their own version of a Noah's Ark story. Interesting at some intellectual level, isn't it?

The people claiming that Tiahuanaco may be 10,000 years old are taking Atlantis literly.

As you say there is a flood story in Gilgamesh. The Israelites lived in the same area last I heard. They were not unrelated. Neither were the Greeks who also had a flood story. Everyone has a flood story. Its because every one has floods. However I do suspect the Greek, Sumerian, and Israelite stories were related. The Greek version is very different. The Hebrew version is obviously closely related. Some of the Greeks originaly came from Anatolia now Turkey. It is possible the Black Sea flood was the source of the stories.

The Gilgamesh version is the most believable of the three. Possibly because its the oldest and closer to the source. It doesn't claim a world wide flood.

"Don't be so open-minded that your brains fall out."