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> the first thought that occurs is that civilisation emerged largely as the sea-level rise stopped. The more likely explanation is that we only have records of
by spaceman_2020 4y ago
> the first thought that occurs is that civilisation emerged largely as the sea-level rise stopped.
The more likely explanation is that we only have records of civilization that survived the sea water rise.
Graham Hancock can get into soe kooky territories, but he has some interesting ideas on civilization during the ice age.
- dredmorbius 4y agoThis seems unlikely. We do have archaeological evidence of early humans and settlements, dating back to as much as 379 kya. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_first_human_settlements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_first_human_settlement...> What we don't see is evidence of substantial communities, complex fabricated artefacts (e.g., pottery shards, monuments, structures, and most importantly writing) prior to about 6kya, at which point those emerge near simultaneously at multiple locations: the Fertile Crescent, Indus River Valley, the Yellow River, the Nile, the Andes (not subject to sea-level rise, and in the southern hemisphere, less subject to northern glaciation), and Mesoamerica. Artefact survival bias is a reasonable concern, but even cultures which occupied terrain inundated by later sea-level rises should have left some marks in more-protected nearby areas: mining, temples, trading-posts or traveller way-stations, and the like. And ... so far as I'm aware (not my area of expertise), there is none. Hancock doesn't seem generally credible FWIW.
- spaceman_2020 4y agoThat 6kya date has been pushed back substantially by Gobekli Tepe. That was a complex site that's dated to be nearly twice as old as the earliest discoveries in the fertile crescent. Hard to assume that there was only one isolated tribe across the planet that figured out how to build something as complex as Gobekli Tepe 10-12kya.
- AlotOfReading 4y agoGobekli tepe isn't even the oldest site in the area, let alone the oldest site in the fertile crescent. It's simply one of the more impressive monumental sites and one that's received a disproportionate amount of media attention.
- dredmorbius 4y agoWhat older ones are you aware of?
- AlotOfReading 4y agoBoncuklu Tarla, Cemka Hoyuk, and Kortik Tepe are all neighboring sites with permanent structures from the preceding epipaleolithic. Jerf Al Ahmar was a semi-nearby site with monumental architecture that was contemporaneous with Gobekli Tepe, and the slightly later site of Nevali Cori is very similar. There's also places like Jericho that are contemporaneous with all of the above, but really deserve to be treated separately.
- dredmorbius 4y agoThanks!
- dredmorbius 4y agoSo, yes, and I actually spent considerable time looking at Gobekli Tepe references in writing that. My understanding is that Gobekli itself may not have been a permanent settlement inhabited continuously as we know it, but was possibly more a temple or ceremonial structure, with part-time habitation. The site itself is at 780m (2560 ft) elevation, which would place it considerably above sea level --- and at a considerable distance, roughly 200 km (120 mi) from the nearest coastline. Both factors would suggest that there might be other settlements at lower elevations and closer proximity to the now-deluged ancient coastal plains. In time factor, Gobekli was contemporary with sea levels about 40m (130 ft) below present levels. My broader point remains: multiple persistent independent emergence of large, agriculture-supported settlements with extant writing systems seems to coincide with sea levels reaching those of the current time.