- #1
Andre
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Lost Ancient civilisations
That's always a hot topic, sometimes leading to less scientific ideas and indeed it's hard to keep it on the straight and narrow path. If only we knew which path that was; hence heated debates. The aim of this thread is to find that path and stay on it, although I realize that this ambition is rather far fetched.
Anyway, the essential question here appears to be:
Moonbear added some valuable notes.
But the question still seem to stand, why didn't that happen 5-10kya, or something, after the appearance of H. sapiens? SelfAdjoint has a good point too:
And it's evidence that count. Not our imagination of course. Now it's getting really delicate but I agree there are a few (more or less disputed) features that may point to unknown ancient civilisations indeed.
Like:
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~yf5f-wtnb/moai_idx/tongariki/moai6_04.jpg
http://www.civilization.ca/civil/egypt/images/arch25b.jpg
http://www.marsearthconnection.com/cuba.html, discussed here
So, what else is there to say? Could there have been unknown civilisations like the Egyptian, Greek or the Roman empires but say anywhere around 150,000 years ago, give or take some 50,000 years?.
That's always a hot topic, sometimes leading to less scientific ideas and indeed it's hard to keep it on the straight and narrow path. If only we knew which path that was; hence heated debates. The aim of this thread is to find that path and stay on it, although I realize that this ambition is rather far fetched.
Anyway, the essential question here appears to be:
andre said:If ancient H sapiens ~200 Kya, was anatomically similar to the modern version, how come that he apparently never seem to bother developing complicated civilisations, whilst the modern men needed only some 4-6 Kya to accomplish that.
Moonbear added some valuable notes.
Moonbear said:But my understanding, which may be wrong, is that formation of stable civilizations accompanied the transition from nomadic hunter/gatherer societies to stable agrarian societies. The key to forming the agrarian societies would be the ability to domesticate animals. Not just any animal can be domesticated easily, as we know from the difficulty of raising and breeding zoo animals or other wild-captured animals in captivity.
So, assuming my premise is correct that the accepted consensus is that animal domestication occurred along with the formation of stable civilizations (as opposed to nomadic tribes, which may leave little evidence of their presence due to the short time spent in anyone location) I would be tempted to argue that formation of civilizations had less to do with a dramatic change in the communication/language/skills/intelligence/social organization of early humans and more to do with the discovery of/increased association with a species of ungulate that could be domesticated, or at least tamed, sufficient to begin living around the captive herds rather than following herds as they migrate.
But the question still seem to stand, why didn't that happen 5-10kya, or something, after the appearance of H. sapiens? SelfAdjoint has a good point too:
selfAdjoint said:Yes it could be that what was thought of as a transition in humanity was actually just due to the better preservation of more recent paintings and fragile artifacts like bone needles and flutes. There could have been a lot of kit that just couldn't survive for 100,000 years.
And it's evidence that count. Not our imagination of course. Now it's getting really delicate but I agree there are a few (more or less disputed) features that may point to unknown ancient civilisations indeed.
Like:
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~yf5f-wtnb/moai_idx/tongariki/moai6_04.jpg
http://www.civilization.ca/civil/egypt/images/arch25b.jpg
http://www.marsearthconnection.com/cuba.html, discussed here
So, what else is there to say? Could there have been unknown civilisations like the Egyptian, Greek or the Roman empires but say anywhere around 150,000 years ago, give or take some 50,000 years?.
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