New findings at the Gobekli Tepe site.

a reply to: Zanti Misfit

The article goes in depth about the drawings depicting 'man' and 'animal' becoming one, as in man overcoming beast, and in amphomorphic variations as well. GT might be an ancient and first recorded testament to such an idea.

originally posted by: [post=25445351]Hanslune
There are literally thousands of un-excavated sites in the fertile crescent alone (I helped in a survey of those in the 80s.) less than 1/1000 of 1% of the world's land surface has been excavated. That should answer your question.

Frankly we don't really need it, there's been loads of examples of earlier 3d works.
The various stone venus idols vastly predate Gobekli tepe.
More, there's hundreds of such carvings done on ancient spear throwers and tools showing the understanding of the idea.
The real link would be transferring the skill from bone and wood and smaller pieces to larger works.
My speculation is that the smaller, simpler structures that have been found lacking decoration will be found to be older.
As to the idea archeologists are panicked about the site, that's hilarious. I have a copy of an archaeology magazine at home thats cover article is the site, most of the issue is dedicated to it.
There's a Teaching Company program dedicated to it. It's featured in most of the lectures dealing with beginning of civilizations.
A regular blog dedicated to keeping those interested informed on the sites progress.

And heck, the Natufians were closer to that cukture/civilization divide than what we see in the area around Gobekli and archeologists have no trouble recognizing they're earlier.

a reply to: RuneSpider

One of the funnier memes that comes out of the fringe is that Archaeologists 'are afraid; 'trying to hide' some site, etc. Several of my colleagues from college who became archaeologists along with me all have lamented not finding something significant. I mean they did solid work in their careers but none made an astounding find, which leads to positions at better schools more offers of leading expeditions/programs/projects, tenure, book deals, institutes being named for you and the biggie the turning on of the grant tap.

a reply to: Harte

Thank you.

I know people think you are the greatest "Rain on parader" on this site but I find you tend to have quite a lot of patience for those who may be curious and wrong because they don't have all the information. Unfortunately for you this group has more untrained eyes that a bunch of high schools virgins talking about sex

originally posted by: atlantiswatusi
a reply to: Harte

Thank you.

I know people think you are the greatest "Rain on parader" on this site but I find you tend to have quite a lot of patience for those who may be curious and wrong because they don't have all the information. Unfortunately for you this group has more untrained eyes that a bunch of high schools virgins talking about sex

LOL
Yeah, I'm an asshole to people that refuse to listen to me and reply with "Nuh Uh!" or whatever.
Posters that repeat the same claptrap after the facts have been explained to them, people that say I'm some kind of government disinfo agent, etc.

But you asked a question so I answered it. You seem to have taken what I posted as an answer to your question (which it was) and not as something from some meanie that spoiled your fantasy.
This is called discussion, and that is sorely lacking in this section of the forum.

Other sections too, no doubt, but I rarely visit other sections because of the idiocy.

Harte

originally posted by: Harte

originally posted by: atlantiswatusi
a reply to: Harte

Thank you.

I know people think you are the greatest "Rain on parader" on this site but I find you tend to have quite a lot of patience for those who may be curious and wrong because they don't have all the information. Unfortunately for you this group has more untrained eyes that a bunch of high schools virgins talking about sex

LOL
Yeah, I'm an asshole to people that refuse to listen to me and reply with "Nuh Uh!" or whatever.
Posters that repeat the same claptrap after the facts have been explained to them, people that say I'm some kind of government disinfo agent, etc.

But you asked a question so I answered it. You seem to have taken what I posted as an answer to your question (which it was) and not as something from some meanie that spoiled your fantasy.
This is called discussion, and that is sorely lacking in this section of the forum.

Other sections too, no doubt, but I rarely visit other sections because of the idiocy.

Harte

Yes, there is a mighty and large wasteland outside of this specific forum in the vast regions of ATS. Yet, even this small island of sanity has fallen far from it heyday.

www.bradshawfoundation.com...

An article by Muhammed Furkan Gunes on aa.com.tr - Ancient site older than Göbekli Tepe unearthed in Turkey - reports on the discoveries at Boncuklu Tarla in Mardin, southeastern Turkey, purported to be 1,000 years older than Göbekli Tepe.

boncuklu.org...

boncuklu.org...

[snipped]



It looks like carbon dating puts the earliest layer at 10400 BCE, which would definitely predate Gobekli Tepe.

Oh, damn the archaeologists forgot they are suppose to hide all this...LOL

a reply to: Hanslune

Honestly you and Harte make this site worth coming back to. I haunt some of those other forums you speak of. Well of the political variety.

I'm sure someone will point out my "brown lips" here....but both of your often sobering responses have helped. I think it was several years back in some post about iconography across cultures being the same that both of your expertise really drove your struggle home. You or Harte pointed out that several of his examples were misidentified but that some of them were straight up from one culture and being presented as evidence for another culture. And included links.

People keep taking their dogmatic views and projecting them into conversations like this were they don't belong.

The idea that archaeology doesn't want the world to know they found a ancient civilization is silly.

originally posted by: atlantiswatusi
a reply to: Hanslune

Honestly you and Harte make this site worth coming back to. I haunt some of those other forums you speak of. Well of the political variety.

I'm sure someone will point out my "brown lips" here....but both of your often sobering responses have helped. I think it was several years back in some post about iconography across cultures being the same that both of your expertise really drove your struggle home. You or Harte pointed out that several of his examples were misidentified but that some of them were straight up from one culture and being presented as evidence for another culture. And included links.

People keep taking their dogmatic views and projecting them into conversations like this were they don't belong.

The idea that archaeology doesn't want the world to know they found a ancient civilization is silly.

Damn right, if I had or could have found a lost civilization I could have remained an Archaeologist instead of teaching IT and business and setting up schools in the Middle East - fine work but I liked archy better. All of my colleagues from the same class from the UH had the same disappointed, all had valuable careers but none made a "Leaky, Calvert, Schmidt, or Petrie level" find....

Yep

A fellow on Quora (Mathew Riggs - an archaeologist) said this recently:

""But beyond being uninformed or misinformed, there is for some a deep attachment to various romantic pictures of the past. There’s a deep distrust of “experts,” an unshakeable conviction that something important is being kept from them, and a strong imaginative desire for an idealized time which would be available to us if only we could recover long-lost secrets""

I'd make a point that while Bonkuklu is older than Gobekli Tepe, it's not older to other Natufian sites.

originally posted by: RuneSpider
I'd make a point that while Bonkuklu is older than Gobekli Tepe, it's not older to other Natufian sites.

Yes and you would be right and before them the Kebaran.

For the lurkers, the oldest Natufian site presently known.

en.wikipedia.org... (there is some confusion in the dates between the outline and body of the wikipedia)

oi.uchicago.edu...

a reply to: Hanslune

So your friend pretty much describes the human condition nowadays.

Overly romantic and overly distrusting of the status quo.

Which tends to ruin conversations in any medium

a reply to: Hanslune

From your link "The site is significant because the inhabitants of Abu Hureyra started out as hunter-gatherers, but gradually moved to farming, making them the earliest known farmers in the world.[2] Cultivation started at the beginning of the Younger Dryas period at Abu Hureyra. Evidence uncovered at Abu Hureyra suggests that rye was the first cereal crop to be systematically cultivated. In light of this, it is now believed that the first systematic cultivation of cereal crops was around 13000 years ago.[3]

So here is where I dive into my romantic notions of history-------While I read climate change likely forces a change in how the population obtains food---and pretty quickly or else----I cannot help but be drawn to the Younger Dyras mention and start imagining that destroyed civilization trying to teach survivors how to cope in a changing world.

That being said....don't let that last statement bury the lead. What I read is a change happened and they made it. What it leaves out is the likely trial and error of different sources of nourishment and a lot of death.

Still----don't you find these creation myths and the timeline they represent to be....more than just coincidence?
A lack of evidence aside for some super civilization.........

originally posted by: atlantiswatusi
a reply to: Hanslune

From your link "The site is significant because the inhabitants of Abu Hureyra started out as hunter-gatherers, but gradually moved to farming, making them the earliest known farmers in the world.[2] Cultivation started at the beginning of the Younger Dryas period at Abu Hureyra. Evidence uncovered at Abu Hureyra suggests that rye was the first cereal crop to be systematically cultivated. In light of this, it is now believed that the first systematic cultivation of cereal crops was around 13000 years ago.[3]

So here is where I dive into my romantic notions of history-------While I read climate change likely forces a change in how the population obtains food---and pretty quickly or else----I cannot help but be drawn to the Younger Dyras mention and start imagining that destroyed civilization trying to teach survivors how to cope in a changing world.

That being said....don't let that last statement bury the lead. What I read is a change happened and they made it. What it leaves out is the likely trial and error of different sources of nourishment and a lot of death.

Still----don't you find these creation myths and the timeline they represent to be....more than just coincidence?
A lack of evidence aside for some super civilization.........

Coincidence of what of what?

a reply to: Hanslune

Do you find it be coincidence that several cultures have a flood myth (or a apocalypse type event) where someone brings knowledge of was lost and why?

Like I said....I understand how there is no evidence of any large scale civilization. No evidence of debris piles that would indicate something massive was undertaken.

As we find out how many cultures had better knowledge of the seas than previously credited the explanation could be something as simple as "Hey that sounds neat---I'll use that"

I was just wondering if these cultures and their "creation myths" make that hardened science heart of yours sing...even a little

originally posted by: atlantiswatusi
a reply to: Hanslune

Do you find it be coincidence that several cultures have a flood myth (or a apocalypse type event) where someone brings knowledge of was lost and why?

It would be odd if they didn't as that is common type of natural disaster and if it did not happen to them they might have heard stories about it happening to others and incorporated it.

Like I said....I understand how there is no evidence of any large scale civilization. No evidence of debris piles that would indicate something massive was undertaken.

As we find out how many cultures had better knowledge of the seas than previously credited the explanation could be something as simple as "Hey that sounds neat---I'll use that"

One suggested correction not, 'credited' but evidenced - even Homo Erectus made his way to off shore island showing some ability to move on water. Homo E, S, D N and others were sloshing around the world for a long time.

I was just wondering if these cultures and their "creation myths" make that hardened science heart of yours sing...even a little

Yes, but more of a strangled yodel, it is interesting how imaginative people were in trying to explain the world around them when they had no science - why did the tides come in and out? Why did lightning strike Yakky but not Zakky, why were some lucky, why were some born crippled, etc. They didn't know but made up stories to explain it anyway. Who invented the spear, fire? No one probably remembered that it was a guy/gal two hundreds thousands years ago so they made up a story.

this is very interesting

originally posted by: atlantiswatusi
a reply to: Hanslune

Do you find it be coincidence that several cultures have a flood myth (or a apocalypse type event) where someone brings knowledge of was lost and why?

Like I said....I understand how there is no evidence of any large scale civilization. No evidence of debris piles that would indicate something massive was undertaken.

As we find out how many cultures had better knowledge of the seas than previously credited the explanation could be something as simple as "Hey that sounds neat---I'll use that"

I was just wondering if these cultures and their "creation myths" make that hardened science heart of yours sing...even a little

Honestly the myths don't really make my heart sing much. They're stories told to explain things long after the fact. And because they're told by people who if we're honest didn't know much of how stuff started they tend to be very simplistic.
That's not attacking their innate intelligence, but the body of information they had was extremely small compared to what we have now.
They can be interesting, and good stories. But no, what really makes my heart sing and sends me on frantic late night reading and researching binges is when we get something that really shows where people were getting something figured out.
Sites like Bonkuklu and others sort of attest to this, a sort of triumph and a sort of tragedy.
Here people got things started towards what we think of as civilization... But it failed.
History is littered with examples of this.
But it's still a triumph, and these many thousands of years later were able to mark it.
Realize that was addressed to Hanslune but still.
Myths are interesting, they're useful, they can offer teachings.
But they don't have the same impact as what we can actually learn

Carbon dating is still based on a Theory. Those numbers are somewhat made up.

Regarding the origin of it, most of it seems to be of ancient greek architecture.

originally posted by: Hellas
Carbon dating is still based on a Theory. Those numbers are somewhat made up.

Regarding the origin of it, most of it seems to be of ancient greek architecture.

I would venture to say that carbon dating is FAR more accurate than, say, your personal knowledge of ancient architecture.

Harte