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...But could it be possible that as of yet unknown civilizations existed along the former shores of the Ice Age earth? Surely humans were intelligent enough to do it; we've been the same anatomically for far longer than 10,000 years. It seems strange to me that we would only have begun creating large organized civilizations with Sumeria, only 5-7 thousand years ago, and so suddenly with the great skill Sumerian works were executed.
A couple of observations...
The last ice age started about 110,000 years ago and ended about 10,000 years ago. However, the ice age didn't cover all of the land. So there should have been some places where civilizations could have started up, only to fall. So the best, perhaps only place to look would be those areas that were in the tropics between 110,000 and 10,000 years ago.
As for who built such a civilization, it would have been the Neanderthal, the Cro-Magnon and the proto Homo Sapiens who would have been the ones to start such civilizations. Homo Sapiens did appear about 100,000 years ago, but they would have been as different from us today as the Cro-Magnon.
In the TV series "Life After People", the scientists examined (speculated?) on what would happen to the structures of our current civilization over time. I believe that, according to the scientists, only things like the Pyramids and Mount Rushmore would exist after 10,000 years.
So I guess if there was a pre-historic civilization, the only way to know it existed would be if that civilization was founded by Cro-Magnons, was in a tropical zone and practiced mega-monolith building on the order of the Pyramids.
The current History Channel series about civilization's decaying remnains after the last human existence points to the fact that many things that are the obvious consequences of organized civilization, like enduring structures, especially metal ones, or steel-reinforced concrete, will be evident, if not pristine, for literally many millennia.
It's unlikely that a civilization could be considered too advanced if it had only discovered stone or carved rock as it's primary building material. By our standards, would we consider the Mayan ruins advanced? Even the Greeks and Romans did better than that, and we do find pretty convincing remnants of their efforts, extending even to their writings.
If an unidentifiable civilization had pre-existed the ice ages (there were obviously a number of those, and they scoured the earth's surfaces quite well, I'm sure we'd still have some sort of uncovered remnants in the Terminal Moraines (like The Statue in "The Planet of The Apes"!), and yet we have none, except those that some fringe believers say exist, conveniently, submerged.
I loved the quote about your pastor though, Charles! Always go to the best source of all knowledge, right?
...But could it be possible that as of yet unknown civilizations existed along the former shores of the Ice Age earth? Surely humans were intelligent enough to do it; we've been the same anatomically for far longer than 10,000 years. It seems strange to me that we would only have begun creating large organized civilizations with Sumeria, only 5-7 thousand years ago, and so suddenly with the great skill Sumerian works were executed.
We already know that there were peoples living in ice age europe going back some 45,000 years ago called the Aurignacian Cultured peoples as many of their tools and art works have been discovered and dated going years back. Most likely the Cro-Mags spawned from them and were probably the cultured peoples who ''probably'' killed off the european Neanderthals some 24,000 years ago.
It probably depends on what you mean by "civilization" - for a group to be civilized, what does that require? Written language? Historical records?
I'm not sure I know where a "bright line" separates "civilized" from "uncivilized". Some Native American tribes had no written language, but had considerable division of labor, agriculture, etc.
It probably depends on what you mean by "civilization" - for a group to be civilized, what does that require? Written language? Historical records?
I'm not sure I know where a "bright line" separates "civilized" from "uncivilized". Some Native American tribes had no written language, but had considerable division of labor, agriculture, etc.
Interesting question. I would define civilization, at a minimum, as an aggregation of people in which at least several clans are represented, and there is a level of authority in place that supersedes instinct survival. Not intended to be a dictionary definition, but rather a working definition for the purposes of a discussion like this.
It probably depends on what you mean by "civilization" - for a group to be civilized, what does that require? Written language? Historical records? ,,,.
It could be said there has never been civilized beings on earth.
Possibly the best prospect of finding conclusive evidence of pre-historical civilizations will be from the explorations of deep-sea oceanographer Robert Ballard and others who have already located and identified several historical sites. Their findings in the Black Sea area seem close to establishing proof of a pre-historical civilization in that area.
Often the unearthing of new evidence of ancient peoples and empires has brought cynicism and ridicule toward the person brash enough to suggest that they are probing a hitherto undiscovered mystery. Such was the case with amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann and his discovery of ancient Troy in the 1870s.
Similarly, prior to about 1870, the Hittites first mentioned in Genesis were considered people of mythology. Then about 1880 the mysterious ruins first discovered in Turkey in 1834 revealed that the Hittites were a powerful people who fought a massive battle with Egypt at Kadesh.
It has only been since 1946 that linguists have unlocked the meaning of Hittite hieroglyphic inscriptions. An excellent book on the Hittites is C.W. Cerams's The Secret of the Hittites. Another book that might be of interest is Egypt Before the Pharaohs by Michael A. Hoffman.
As for civilization, I mean something on a similar scale to Sumer, the Old Kingdom (Egyt), ect. If any hypothetical unknown civilization developed and was build on the coast, their cities and monuments would be underwater and most likely worn away or covered with tons of silt.
Perhaps we only know what we do about ancient middle-eastern people because of the environments their ruins are found in. There were plenty of far more habitable places around the world, after all.
It's also interesting to note that (per the UN) approx 60 percent of modern humans live within 60 miles of the ocean today. If our sea levels suddenly rose, more than half of the current global civilization would be wiped out. Considering that early pre-human and human migration most likely followed the coasts, those areas would naturally be the most logical places for the birth and flowering of civilization. If so, the Nile and the Tigris/Euphrates river valleys may have been the backwater, not the centers of civilization. Perhaps we were lead to believe that simply because the environments therse were conducive to preserving ruins, while the real cradle(s) was drowned 10,000 years ago after the ice age ended.
As for civilization, I mean something on a similar scale to Sumer, the Old Kingdom (Egyt), ect. If any hypothetical unknown civilization developed and was build on the coast, their cities and monuments would be underwater and most likely worn away or covered with tons of silt.
Perhaps we only know what we do about ancient middle-eastern people because of the environments their ruins are found in. There were plenty of far more habitable places around the world, after all.
It's also interesting to note that (per the UN) approx 60 percent of modern humans live within 60 miles of the ocean today. If our sea levels suddenly rose, more than half of the current global civilization would be wiped out. Considering that early pre-human and human migration most likely followed the coasts, those areas would naturally be the most logical places for the birth and flowering of civilization. If so, the Nile and the Tigris/Euphrates river valleys may have been the backwater, not the centers of civilization. Perhaps we were lead to believe that simply because the environments therse were conducive to preserving ruins, while the real cradle(s) was drowned 10,000 years ago after the ice age ended.
That is a very valid point, based on sound reasoning. I would put it in the category of Possible, but not Probable. The lands set back from the coasts were not so inhospitable as to significantly retard development or movement of populations. Even though centered in coastal areas, there would probably always be "backwaters", where there would still be evidence of their associated coastal civilizations.
In fact, even today, many great cities are set back from the coast because close proximity to the ocean can have as many disadvantages as benefits. In fact, for example, only two of Mexico's 33 largest cities are situated on the coast, and both of those exist almost exclusively as tourist destinations.
Maybe I'll count them later on, but as a guess, I'd say that only about a quarter of all national capitals in the world are in coastal locations.
Too often the idea of a highly developed civilization having existed in pre-historic times is rejected out of hand. Undoubtedly, they didn't have telecommunications and rapid means of travel. but that doesn't mean they were any less brilliant. We would be challenged today to duplicate some of the accomplishments of the earliest known historical period.
In a combined effort in 1922, the University of Pennsylvania and the British Museum asked archaeologist Leonard Woolley to lead an excavation at the site of the ancient city of UR in Chaldea. Not surprisingly, Wooley discovered a series of succeeding cities built one on top of each other. However, what was surprising is that the most intricate and exquisite pieces of art were found at the the bottom layer of the excavation, or the foundation city.
Woolley details all of this in his book "Ur of the Chaldees." In assessing the finds of the excavation, a quote by Woolley is notable, "The contents of the tombs illustrate a very highly developed state of society of an urban type, a society in which the architect was familiar with all the basic principles of construction known to us today."
This hardly sounds like a description of the work of knuckle-dragging quadrupeds. Other ancient acomplishments in historical times could be cited that point to a high level of civilization, for example, the bathrooms with a drainage system found on the island of Crete that surpass anything found in Europe until the 19th century.
Certainly, the skills displayed in metallurgy and craft at Ur and those in Egypt didn't spring forth spontaneously. However, that brings the question of why so little is known of the pre-historic period. The answer could be that there was a global catastrophe, something on a scale that is beyond the human imagination. Few thinking people could view the Grand Canyon and deny that something horrific and catastrophic overtook the earth in the dim past.
Over 50 years ago immanuel Velikovsky wrote a book titled "Earth in Upheaval." It created a sensation in the scientific world, especially following his previous controversial book "Worlds in Collision." Velikovsky's theories were roundly attacked, by a no less notable scientific expert than astronomer Carl Sagan and others. After all, Velikovsky had some natural science training, but his field was basically psychoanalysis. That his book wasn't dismissed lightly by his friend Albert Einstein is evident by the fact that it was the only book found on Einstein's desk after his death.
Velikovsky makes a strong case for his theory of global catastrophism in pre-history, but one event in historical times, the explosion of Thera, between 1800 and 1500 BC, stands out. The effects of this one explosion is said to have exceeded, by several times, that of Krakatoa in 1883. He cites accounts that this event may have been the downfall of he Middle Kingdom of Egypt and the massive destruction on the island of Crete and areas in the mid-east.
Judging from the one comparatively isolated event of Thera, the kind of global upheaval that Velikovsky describes makes the disappearance of ancient civilizations understandable.
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