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3000-2500 BCE is such an interesting time period. Civilization and technology somewhat inexplicably pick up throughout the world within just a few centuries. Fo
by there_the_and 6y ago
3000-2500 BCE is such an interesting time period. Civilization and technology somewhat inexplicably pick up throughout the world within just a few centuries. For example, coinciding with the Gilgamesh time period (around 2800 BCE to 2500 BCE) the major pyramids in Egypt pop up, and so do the Caral / Norte Chico pyramids and cities in Peru.
- NicoJuicy 6y agoDon't forget Greece, who might have invented the first analog computer 2000 years ago. ( In Antikythera )
- messe 6y agoThat's a couple of thousand years later.
- Swizec 6y agoHistory Channel says the only possible answer is aliens. Or maybe it’s an adjacent possible thing and the ancient world was far more connected by trade than we often think. It’s easy to forget that these were “just” neighboring countries/kingdoms back then. A lot like today. The illusion of linear progression we get from history class is largely an effect of “You can’t learn everything at once”
- agustif 6y agoI'm actually just watching Aliens in the History Channel, lol. What would be the other plausible explanation though? Considering fermi paradox etc...
- deadalus 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_mind
- Ar-Curunir 6y agoThat people didn’t suddenly become competent in the last 200 years? Humans haven’t really changed anatomically for many tens of thousands of years
- snidane 6y agoAnti-gradualist explanation of history is an alternative and more likely explanation. Gradualism means a version of history in which civilisation progresses gradually from less to more civilised over time. The opposite is a history in which there could have been moments when human civilization was more advanced way before our notion of recorded history, but suffered a massive hit to its existence. Then the civilisation after got rebuilt but with the previous culture and technological knowledge forgotten. One such theory is by Graham Hancock and Randall Carlson [1]. They present an explanation of history in which there could have been a more technologically advanced human culture even during ice age which got wiped out when ice age ended. The end of ice age was completely sudden, which they explain by a meteor crash into the huge ice sheets causing large tsunamis and sudden ocean level increase which wiped out majority of advanced population living in cities right by the sea - same as today. Causing the advanced culture and its knowledge to cease to exist with remains being picked up or reused by more primitive people living in mainlands and forming cultures which are now basis of our civilisation. Their version explains currently unexplained phenomena such as 1. sudden extinction of ice age animal species. Hordes of mammoths found dead with broken femur bones (killed by massive tsunami vs killed by mammoth hunters as explained by current dogma) 2. Big Flood myths found consistently across many independent cultures around the world 3. Technological regress in Egyptian culture - pyramids and pottery way more advanced in older periods than in later periods (forgotten technology) 4. Way more advanced technology of construction in older structures in Latin America (Cusco, Machu Picchu, Sacsayhuamán, Pumapunku) with advanced construction techniques unexplained still until today 5. Geological evidence of massive tsunamis such as large travelling stones (sliding on melting ice sheets) deep into mainland North America or massive water erosion corridors also possibly explained by large tsunamis [1] https://youtu.be/0H5LCLljJho https://youtu.be/0H5LCLljJho
- valuearb 6y agoGraham Hancock is a fun fictionalist, the Erik Von Danikan of our time.
- cneu 6y agoSome of his claims are quite far-fetched and esoteric. However, even Michael Shermer, head of Skeptic magazine, recently admitted (https://twitter.com/michaelshermer/status/1237559469967421440 https://twitter.com/michaelshermer/status/123755946996742144...) that there is some plausibility for the younger dryas impact hypothesis, which is currently an important part of Hancock's lost civilization claims. Such a major catastrophe would of course have a reset effect on any existing advanced civilization. This alone is not proof that there was one, of course.
- therein 6y agoI'd like to see what HN thinks of "Symbols of an Alien Sky" [0]. Sounds like you would enjoy this. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7EAlTcZFwY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7EAlTcZFwY
- acqq 6y ago> What would be the other plausible explanation though? Other plausible? However "Aliens" isn't the plausible explanation at all. The series' producer has a very specific agenda: to train the viewers to not believe the science (1) in his own words: "It’s really a show about looking for God. Science would have you believe we are the result of nothing more than a chance assemblage of matter. The real truth is we don’t know." Whereas in fact, science is also very much about knowing exactly what we don't know and where the limits of our knowledge are. Some people find that unsatisfying, compared to the wrong answers but giving assuring "certainty." It particularly catches the people who won't attempt to analyze what is actually claimed there. 082349872349872 here (2) comments about how the claims in the series are constructed. I'd say "required reading" only to study how the underlying untrue "message" is packed in the series of non-sequitur claims, effectively navigating in the direction opposite of logic. 1) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/21/style/ancient-aliens.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/21/style/ancient-aliens.html 2) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23721423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23721423
- KhoomeiK 6y ago> Or maybe it’s an adjacent possible thing and the ancient world was far more connected by trade than we often think. Custard Apples, which are native to Central America, were thought to have been introduced to India in the 1500's through Portuguese contact. A few years ago, they found a custard apple seed carbon dated to 1800 BC at an archaeological site in Northern India [1]. Researchers still have no idea how it got there. [1] https://www.academia.edu/25089948/Custard-Apple_existed_in_India_even_before_Discovery_of_America_by_Columbus https://www.academia.edu/25089948/Custard-Apple_existed_in_I...
- Swizec 6y ago> were thought to have been introduced to India in the 1500's through Portuguese contact Funny how everything was introduced by us white european folk to the rest of the world. I wonder who wrote that version of history. How much stuff do you think happened before we got there to see it happening and write about it for our branch of global science? We know for example that China had massive 14 mast ships and global-ish trade back when Europe was barely doing 3 masts as state of the art. And we know that Ancient Egypt traded as far as India
- KhoomeiK 6y agoHaha yeah, totally. Modern Western culture as we know it is only about 500 years old, though it arguably takes influences from the Greeks and Romans back another 2500 years. Even 500 BC though isn't that old in the grand scale of things. It's interesting how we refer to everything before ~500 AD as "ancient" when civilization really began around 3000 BC—that is to say, the "ancient" period is more than double the length of the post-ancient. It's mindblowing to think what could've happened in those entire centuries during which we just don't have records of certain areas. Partly the reason why I'm super interested in archaeogenetics, revealing the tremendous amount of history locked away in our very own DNA.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago> Modern Western culture as we know it is only about 500 years old, though it arguably takes influences from the Greeks and Romans back another 2500 years. That would be a difficult argument to make; classical Greece only goes back to about the eighth century BC. Mycenaean Greece goes much further back, but we can't observe most of the cultural continuity (though obviously there was a decent amount of it), because between Mycenaean Greece and classical Greece there was the Greek Dark Age of about 400 years when they forgot how to read and write. A cultural legacy of 2500 years total is a much fairer estimate than one of 3000 years. As you note, though, the legacy of the classical world was itself interrupted and then purposefully reimported into Renaissance Europe. This is rather different from how, in the 4th century AD, there were still priests of the old religion in Babylon, reading tablets written thousands of years before them thanks to a historical tradition that had, at that point, never been interrupted. Something I found charming from the wikipedia article on Sargon the Great is that the Babylonian king Nabonidus (6th century BC, "ancient" by any modern standard) sponsored archaeological research into his life. And well he might, since Sargon preceded Nabonidus by about 1800 years. But you just don't think about one ancient king supporting archaeology concerning another ancient king. Ancient is ancient, right?
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- michaelbrave 6y agoI always assumed the aliens hypothesis was halfway racist as in "how could a non-white culture build things we don't know how to do, ah yes it must be otherworldly". The remnants of early European propaganda that justified a lot of their conquest is still strong today, we just forget it's origins.
- lliamander 6y agoI'm pretty sure I've seen the ancient alien hypothesis applied to Stonehenge too. In any case, I just don't think there wasn't a lot going on in Europe at this time for the "ancient alien" folks to attribute to aliens.
- Ar-Curunir 6y agoThe problem is that people don’t consider Stonehenge to be part of Western civilization. The latter is usually traced back to the beginning of Mycenaean Greek civilization
- leadingthenet 6y ago> The problem is that people don’t consider Stonehenge to be part of Western civilization I’m not sure I agree with this. As someone living in Britain, I can attest to the fact that the people living on this island definitely consider it an integral part of their own cultural heritage.
- lliamander 6y agoYou said "non-white culture", not "non-western culture". The Celtic Britons (or whoever built it) would certainly count as white. As the other commenter said, I think most would consider it a part of Western culture.
- Ar-Curunir 6y agoStonehenge predates Celtic presence in Great Britain by at least a thousand years.
- grawprog 6y ago>History Channel says the only possible answer is aliens. One part of me always enjoyed those theories for the science fiction-ness of it. Some writeups i've seen about it read better than some science fiction books i've read. The other part of me dislikes them though because it discounts the sheer human ingenuity, craftsmanship and skill that went into these things. It discounts the amazing things people are capable of and discredits our ancestors. I feel kind of the same way about the Roswell ufo tech leading to modern computers theories. They make light of the work of so many people and wave it off as being impossible without aliens.
- roland00 6y agoYes it is likely trade, for we know these time periods had some great surges of trade compared to times before.
- 082349872349872 6y agoIf you listen carefully, History Channel doesn't actually say that. (implied heavily, and maybe it was different in earlier seasons, but I think "Ancient Aliens" ought to be required viewing for anglophone school children[1], because each episode starts from presenting factual information and slowly works its way towards very carefully hedged wild "conclusions"[2]. as with the sorites paradox the question to keep in mind while viewing is: when does the shark jump occur?) [1] compare interpretation of reported speech in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23614277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23614277 [2] "Ancient alien theorists conclude X. What if it were true?"
- acheron 6y agoThat's also the time period of the invention of both cuneiform writing in Sumeria as well as "probably" separately, Egyptian hieroglyphs.
- menybuvico 6y agoGlobal trade was a thing back then. It collapsed around 1200 BC, but before it did, there was a lot of knowledge (and probably cultural phenomena) spreading around amongst much of humanity. I doubt we'll ever know half of it.
- ljlolel 6y agodoesn't explain Peru
- menybuvico 6y agoNo, that's likely to end up in the half we'll never be able to figure out. Unless the aliens are good at record-keeping and decide to tell us one day. :D
- leadingthenet 6y agoCould you expand on this? My knowledge is severely lacking wrt the Americas during this period.
- notahacker 6y agoAssume the OP's point is that American civilisations developed without being plugged into a Eurasian 'global' trade system, starting in Peru. The Norte Chico system is generally believed to have developed cities and monumental architecture over a broadly similar time period as the Middle Eastern civilisations without any contact with them at all. They even built superficially similar step pyramids.
- prox 6y agoI highly recommend Drawing History, easy to read comics on a wide range of history: https://tapas.io/episode/1214161 https://tapas.io/episode/1214161