How old is civilization?

Originally posted by stikkinikki
I think there might have been civilisations older than 16K BC. The sea level used to be alot lower, in fact it has gone up and down throughout Earths History. Civilisations hugging the coast could easily be wiped out by rising sealevels and have the traces of their culture erased.

Howdy S

The civilization would simply move with the slow rise of the waters. There has never been (AFAIK) a civilization that stays religious only on a coastal area and never ventures into the inner land or just sits there and waits to be flooded out. They tend to move. Most early cultures tended to have gathering sites inland and along the coast, moving seasonally. We should be find more civilizations as we go deeper and marine archaeology improves.

The ice ages would be tougher on remains but we find remains from before the last ice age and before. If the material is in the soil it will survive. Much of ice age coverage wasn't classic glaciers but plain accumulation of snow.

Originally posted by hinky
I enjoyed the mention of the Indus valley and the French Cave paintings. Both of these examples show a level of habitation beyond hunter/gatherer.

Thinking of only of the mideast as the cradle of civilization is a thought process that is hard to overcome by many educated people. Even the Clovis people of North America date back some 13,000 - 14,000 years. Do you honestly think some people in Iraq decided to take a walk one day?

How many generations do you think this trip encompassed? Would the people have stayed in hunting/gathering mode the whole time, or would settlements be established in the "better" areas. This get to the core of the wood based argument mentioned in Central Europe. (Good idea on that one - Hanslune)

As I said, people must agree on the definition of civilization before they can argue for or against the existence of one.

You seem to feel that civilization is what comes after hunter-gatherer, but I do not agree.

There is no reason to call the Clovis People a civilization.

Cave paintings appear to be shamanistic in nature and not expressions of what we refer to as "art," which requires leisure. Cave paintings were done (apparently) as a ritual for a particular purpose, as almost all examples are drawn right on top of previous drawings.

Originally posted by hinkyAs for the Indus Valley. Only in the very recent past have serious science been performed. I think many people will be very surprised at the outcome of this research. There are more than several archaeological sites under more than several feet of water in the Indian Ocean. Sea levels had to much lower for this to happen. Now we are clearly outside the norms for accepted time frames of a mideast cradle of civilization.

Not so. The flooded constructions in India were not flooded by glacial meltwaters associated with the last ice age. The tectonic plate holding India (Indo-Australian plate, IIRC,) is being subducted in some areas. IOW, the water didn't rise, the ground sank.

One site has become flooded within the past few hundred years, in fact, but I don't remember which.

Originally posted by hinky
I don't really know if modern science will accept these changes within my lifetime. I do think my kids will see ancient history rewritten to a certain extent.

No question. This has happened in my lifetime already, and will probably happen in everyone's lifetime.

Harte

[edit on 4/9/2008 by Harte]

The history of ancient man change virtually every day - which brings to mind an idea for a thread! It takes 3-5 years for new ideas to filter thru into textbooks.

Which is why most archaeology courses have supplementary materials on websites.

Our civilization predates our arrival on this planet.

We are the survivors of an ancient species.

Originally posted by Chakotay
Our civilization predates our arrival on this planet.

We are the survivors of an ancient species.

Okay, interesting idea - got any meat to go with the bones of that idea?

Our civilization predates our arrival on this planet.

Why is our genetic/DNA structure the same as the other creatures on this planet?

I think for a culture to qualify as civilization, it needs to fulfill fairly few requirements. For example, I don't think writing is essential for civilization.

I suspect it is probably as simple as "a culture that is able to support social classes".

This can be further extrapolated to mean a culture where not everyone has to be a farmer - there are other people who do more skilled and specialised jobs, a form of government, arts and entertainment, etc etc.

reply to post by gingern


Well, first, the Piri Reis map is from the 17th century and is supposedly based off earlier turkish documents, circa about the 1500's. It certainly doesn't fall under "ancient civilizations" by any degree. It's claim to fame is that it supposedly shows Antarctica, not its age.

its other claim to fame is being drawn by what might have been the worst cartographer history has ever seen, but that's beside the point.

Originally posted by Harte



As I said, people must agree on the definition of civilization before they can argue for or against the existence of one.

However.... by 'agreement' we also also definitely mean 'consensus' then the perimeters of what defines the definition of a Civilization is both an Academic and Political exercise... there is no real truth to be found in that...

It has been Postulated that the cave paintings (an expression of a structured and civilized society) were only done by an extreme cult of people within a culture,( the shamans and apprentices), while the general population were either unawares or were left-out-of-the-loop is totally speculation... so that modern academics could classify these ancestors of ours as being un-civilized.

the world is not a Judeo-Christian landscape,
it is more like a classic cut jig-saw puzzle

its other claim to fame is being drawn by what might have been the worst cartographer history has ever seen, but that's beside the point.

I think some of the medieval map makers were worse.

reply to post by C.C.Benjamin

I suspect it is probably as simple as "a culture that is able to support social classes".

This makes very good sense. I posted somthing very similar on the first page of this thread in response to grover's request for a definition: Civilization: potty-training for adults

Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by C.C.Benjamin

 

I suspect it is probably as simple as "a culture that is able to support social classes".

This makes very good sense. I posted somthing very similar on the first page of this thread in response to grover's request for a definition: Civilization: potty-training for adults

Thank you, and I love the title of that post.

Dictionary.com describes it as thus (along with many other peripheral definitions):

1. an advanced state of human society, in which a high level of culture, science, industry, and government has been reached.


This would imply that separate social classes are required for a society to be classed as a civilization.

The discovery of "Lucy", in Ethiopia is the oldest human skeleton remains found. Its is said to be 3.2 million years old. Around the world Ethiopia is known as the "Cradle of Civilization".

reply to post by BroonStone


One of the major problems about finding ancient items is that many cultures before us have used and cannibalized what was needed to build or use for their society. If they needed blocks to build and knew of an older abandoned settlement, they would take the blocks to use.
Another problem is many old civilizations are buried under many feet of dirt. One would have to know exactly where to look to find where a civilization may be. Also catastrophic happenings like earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, etc take their toll to. Until more evidence is found, it is really difficult to pinpoint when and where civilization began. I am one who thinks it is much older than believed, and that is my theory. It does not have any real evidence to back it up, but who knows what will be found in the future.

I suggest you check out www.forbiddenhistory.info. It has alot of validated out of place artifacts. Among the most interesting: the Permian mammal footprints validated by the Smithsonian, Vedic texts describing aerial battles and nuclear warfare thousands of years ago, and the fused glass layer (identical to White Sands) with radioactive skeletons found in the Indus valley from thousands of years ago. Without a doubt, I believe we have been more advanced in the past but then got stupid or had some global catastrophe.