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Samo Burja has an excellent essay about why civilization is older than we think https://palladiummag.com/2021/05/17/why-civilization-is-older-than-we-thought/

by hsn915 4y ago

Samo Burja has an excellent essay about why civilization is older than we think https://palladiummag.com/2021/05/17/why-civilization-is-older-than-we-thought/ https://palladiummag.com/2021/05/17/why-civilization-is-olde... Some interesting quotes: > When we find remains of beavers, we assume they built beaver dams, even if we don’t immediately find remnants of such dams. > [...] > When we find Homo sapiens skeletons, however, we instead imagine the people naked, feasting on berries, without shelter, and without social differentiation.

russellbeattie 4y ago
> When thinking about the dating of agriculture it is important to remember that Göbekli Tepe was rediscovered rather than discovered. In October 1994, the archaeologist Klaus Schmidt was reviewing archives of known sites, trying to decide where to dig next. A site description caught his attention: a hill that had first been excavated in a 1963 survey by the University of Istanbul and the University of Chicago, but abandoned soon after. Heh. A much less prosaic version of the story with the mulberry bush in OP's article.
simonh 4y ago
Sorry but that quote has convinced me not to read the rest. It’s absurd. Firstly no we don’t just assume beavers made dams, we don’t need to because we’ve found plenty of ancient remains of beaver dams. We know beavers and dam construction behaviour evolved at some point and want to know when and how that happened, so we look for evidence linking the two. If we just made blind assumptions it would not be possible to figure out the developmental timeline. Secondly the development of evolved instinctive behaviour is in no way comparable to human learned cultural behaviour, such as technology. That should be so obvious I’m at a loss that I have to even point it out.
- dmix 4y ago
  I also noticed this was a thing that bothered them: > Along the way to the site, a forgettable visitor’s center greeted me with animations and music evoking primitiveness. Such art is a window into our modern shared subconscious rather than into the culture of a people who erected buildings 11,500 years ago. I discovered it’s more of a political website, not one typically about archeology, and it made more sense in that context. They seem to have a chip on their shoulder about the perception of older cultures. Which also explains the opening about Turkey’s development. That said it’s a good read and later on has some interesting history on the development of archeology.
- emoII 4y ago
  Isn't the point that our ability to learn and develop cultural behaviour is pretty much instinctive? Of course humans everywhere did things recreationally, it seems part of what it is to be human.
  - simonh 4y ago
    Fair enough, however I’m not making a point about the origin of the behaviour, but how the behaviour manifests. Cultural behaviour can change very rapidly, and propagate through a population in significantly less than a generation, whereas instinctive behaviour takes many, many generations to develop and propagate. It’s not reasonable to equate the way they develop and propagate as being the same simply because they are both behaviour, and anyone who suggests they can clearly isn’t a credible source on the subject.
deleted 4y ago
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henriquemaia 4y ago
Thank you for sharing it. I read it and confirm it's an excellent essay. Your quote was the perfect teaser!
tshaddox 4y ago
Okay, but we don’t expect ancient Homo sapiens to have had smartphones, surely?

by hsn915 4y ago

russellbeattie 4y ago

> When thinking about the dating of agriculture it is important to remember that Göbekli Tepe was rediscovered rather than discovered. In October 1994, the archaeologist Klaus Schmidt was reviewing archives of known sites, trying to decide where to dig next. A site description caught his attention: a hill that had first been excavated in a 1963 survey by the University of Istanbul and the University of Chicago, but abandoned soon after. Heh. A much less prosaic version of the story with the mulberry bush in OP's article.

simonh 4y ago

Sorry but that quote has convinced me not to read the rest. It’s absurd. Firstly no we don’t just assume beavers made dams, we don’t need to because we’ve found plenty of ancient remains of beaver dams. We know beavers and dam construction behaviour evolved at some point and want to know when and how that happened, so we look for evidence linking the two. If we just made blind assumptions it would not be possible to figure out the developmental timeline. Secondly the development of evolved instinctive behaviour is in no way comparable to human learned cultural behaviour, such as technology. That should be so obvious I’m at a loss that I have to even point it out.

dmix 4y ago
I also noticed this was a thing that bothered them: > Along the way to the site, a forgettable visitor’s center greeted me with animations and music evoking primitiveness. Such art is a window into our modern shared subconscious rather than into the culture of a people who erected buildings 11,500 years ago. I discovered it’s more of a political website, not one typically about archeology, and it made more sense in that context. They seem to have a chip on their shoulder about the perception of older cultures. Which also explains the opening about Turkey’s development. That said it’s a good read and later on has some interesting history on the development of archeology.
emoII 4y ago
Isn't the point that our ability to learn and develop cultural behaviour is pretty much instinctive? Of course humans everywhere did things recreationally, it seems part of what it is to be human.
- simonh 4y ago
  Fair enough, however I’m not making a point about the origin of the behaviour, but how the behaviour manifests. Cultural behaviour can change very rapidly, and propagate through a population in significantly less than a generation, whereas instinctive behaviour takes many, many generations to develop and propagate. It’s not reasonable to equate the way they develop and propagate as being the same simply because they are both behaviour, and anyone who suggests they can clearly isn’t a credible source on the subject.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

henriquemaia 4y ago

Thank you for sharing it. I read it and confirm it's an excellent essay. Your quote was the perfect teaser!

tshaddox 4y ago

Okay, but we don’t expect ancient Homo sapiens to have had smartphones, surely?