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We certainly are likely to find more prehistoric sites, but they're highly unlikely to match the fantasy that Hancock is pushing. Here's an article about why: h

We certainly are likely to find more prehistoric sites, but they're highly unlikely to match the fantasy that Hancock is pushing. Here's an article about why: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-there-wasnt-an-advanced-civilization-12-000-years-ago/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-there-wasnt-an...

ncmncm 6y ago
Joke's on them. Turns out there really was a big, widespread comet strike, probably multiple air bursts, and it was also responsible for extinctions in South America and Africa. Evidence of the singular event surfaced as far afield as South Africa, Chile, and Syria. Was there an advanced civilization? First, what do you mean by "advanced"? Any civilization at all preceding known Harappan and Mesopotamian settlements would be a big upset to the current narrative. There are extensively built-up areas known, off the coast of India and south of Harappan sites, that were last above water more than 6000 years ago.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- bildung 6y ago
  The "current narrative" already includes pre-mesopotamian civilizations like Göbekli Tepe (10000 BC), Ganj Dareh (8000 BC), Mehrgarh (7000 BC), Tell Abu Hureyra (11000BC, first known crop cultivation), ...
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    Göbekli Tepe was not a civilization. All the evidence indicates no one lived there. Similarly, the other sites: elements that always accompany civilizations happened there, but without cities.
    - fhjdjksksksks6 6y ago
      You clearly lack background knowledge about contemporary archaeological understanding of the palaeolithic and neolithic periods in southwest asia and anatolia. First off, referring to 'civilizations' as basic entities or units of analysis is just nonsense. Sure, there has been some talk about 'social complexity' up to the mid-90s, but (a) that discourse is largely outdated since it tends to be based on justifying prior presumptions regarding the nature and boundaries of societies that were already assumed to be 'civilizations' without adequate reason, (b) that perspective is being replaced by more bottom-up approaches that model various kinds of behaviours and interactions, including possibilities and limits thereof, and as guided by the archaeological evidence, and (c) even when we do talk about so-called 'civilizations', that is typically limited to a period starting around 4000 BCE. You are clearly ignoring (what I consider to be) the most exciting topic of archaeological research, the pre-pottery neolithic. As bildung points out, coherent models about this period have been formulated by drawing on evidence accumulated from dozens of PPN sites. EDIT: Beyond the Ubaid is a fantastic edited volume that touches on this shift, with papers by leading archaeologists: https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/publications/saoc/saoc-63-beyond-ubaid-transformation-and-integration-late-prehistoric https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/publications/saoc/saoc-63-b... EDIT2: See also: https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2014.44 https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2014.44 and https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10963-007-9008-1 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10963-007-9008-1 Yes, it is true that Gobekli Tepe has no habitation associated with it, but we do not consider this an unresolved puzzle. Gobleki Tepe is commonly accepted as a great example of the ingenuity of nomadic peoples. Why do you assume that it would be necessary for its builders to have been sedentary?
      - ncmncm 6y ago
        I do not assume it would be necessary for its builders to have been sedentary. Neolithic behaviors differing from the modern familiars are all interesting, but when we use the word "civilization", we are definitively talking about cities. Associating onset of civilization with 3-4000 BCE is a conclusion from present evidence, not a definition, and would need to be changed in the face of new evidence of cities. Hints at civilization pre-4000 BCE typified by GT are as interesting as other neolithic phenomena. To be clear: while it is possible, in principle, that GT builders invented all their stonework methods de novo, it is clearly much more likely that they drew on a long history of gradually more sophisticated stonework not yet unearthed, possibly elsewhere. What we know about sea level changes allows that much of such evidence may now be under water, although it could also be found in the Tepes yet to be excavated. We have absolutely no reason to believe that areas now deluged were unoccupied, or that the people who lived in those places chose to stay there and drown. They would have brought their culture uphill with them. The entire Persian Gulf was recently dry land. Australians retain oral records of the social upheavals when people who lived in the Sahul region between present Australia and New Guinea were obliged to move uphill, to where other people already lived. Similar upheavals must have occurred on the present Indonesian islands and nearby peninsulas, absorbing influx from the hundreds of thousands of square miles of the the now deluged Sundaland. People 6000 years ago, or 11,000 years ago, were no more clever than 20,000 years ago. What was evidently done 6000 years ago could have been done longer ago, given only population density and surplus food production. Undiscovered civilizations are certainly possible: the huge Amazon basin civilization was entirely unsuspected only decades ago.

ncmncm 6y ago

Joke's on them. Turns out there really was a big, widespread comet strike, probably multiple air bursts, and it was also responsible for extinctions in South America and Africa. Evidence of the singular event surfaced as far afield as South Africa, Chile, and Syria. Was there an advanced civilization? First, what do you mean by "advanced"? Any civilization at all preceding known Harappan and Mesopotamian settlements would be a big upset to the current narrative. There are extensively built-up areas known, off the coast of India and south of Harappan sites, that were last above water more than 6000 years ago.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bildung 6y ago
The "current narrative" already includes pre-mesopotamian civilizations like Göbekli Tepe (10000 BC), Ganj Dareh (8000 BC), Mehrgarh (7000 BC), Tell Abu Hureyra (11000BC, first known crop cultivation), ...
- ncmncm 6y ago
  Göbekli Tepe was not a civilization. All the evidence indicates no one lived there. Similarly, the other sites: elements that always accompany civilizations happened there, but without cities.
  - fhjdjksksksks6 6y ago
    You clearly lack background knowledge about contemporary archaeological understanding of the palaeolithic and neolithic periods in southwest asia and anatolia. First off, referring to 'civilizations' as basic entities or units of analysis is just nonsense. Sure, there has been some talk about 'social complexity' up to the mid-90s, but (a) that discourse is largely outdated since it tends to be based on justifying prior presumptions regarding the nature and boundaries of societies that were already assumed to be 'civilizations' without adequate reason, (b) that perspective is being replaced by more bottom-up approaches that model various kinds of behaviours and interactions, including possibilities and limits thereof, and as guided by the archaeological evidence, and (c) even when we do talk about so-called 'civilizations', that is typically limited to a period starting around 4000 BCE. You are clearly ignoring (what I consider to be) the most exciting topic of archaeological research, the pre-pottery neolithic. As bildung points out, coherent models about this period have been formulated by drawing on evidence accumulated from dozens of PPN sites. EDIT: Beyond the Ubaid is a fantastic edited volume that touches on this shift, with papers by leading archaeologists: https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/publications/saoc/saoc-63-beyond-ubaid-transformation-and-integration-late-prehistoric https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/publications/saoc/saoc-63-b... EDIT2: See also: https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2014.44 https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2014.44 and https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10963-007-9008-1 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10963-007-9008-1 Yes, it is true that Gobekli Tepe has no habitation associated with it, but we do not consider this an unresolved puzzle. Gobleki Tepe is commonly accepted as a great example of the ingenuity of nomadic peoples. Why do you assume that it would be necessary for its builders to have been sedentary?
    - ncmncm 6y ago
      I do not assume it would be necessary for its builders to have been sedentary. Neolithic behaviors differing from the modern familiars are all interesting, but when we use the word "civilization", we are definitively talking about cities. Associating onset of civilization with 3-4000 BCE is a conclusion from present evidence, not a definition, and would need to be changed in the face of new evidence of cities. Hints at civilization pre-4000 BCE typified by GT are as interesting as other neolithic phenomena. To be clear: while it is possible, in principle, that GT builders invented all their stonework methods de novo, it is clearly much more likely that they drew on a long history of gradually more sophisticated stonework not yet unearthed, possibly elsewhere. What we know about sea level changes allows that much of such evidence may now be under water, although it could also be found in the Tepes yet to be excavated. We have absolutely no reason to believe that areas now deluged were unoccupied, or that the people who lived in those places chose to stay there and drown. They would have brought their culture uphill with them. The entire Persian Gulf was recently dry land. Australians retain oral records of the social upheavals when people who lived in the Sahul region between present Australia and New Guinea were obliged to move uphill, to where other people already lived. Similar upheavals must have occurred on the present Indonesian islands and nearby peninsulas, absorbing influx from the hundreds of thousands of square miles of the the now deluged Sundaland. People 6000 years ago, or 11,000 years ago, were no more clever than 20,000 years ago. What was evidently done 6000 years ago could have been done longer ago, given only population density and surplus food production. Undiscovered civilizations are certainly possible: the huge Amazon basin civilization was entirely unsuspected only decades ago.