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> According to Wikipedia it is 25,000 years ago and in Eastern Europe The person you were replying to was asking about cities. The article you are posting is a

> According to Wikipedia it is 25,000 years ago and in Eastern Europe The person you were replying to was asking about cities. The article you are posting is about Sedentism - "the practice of living in one place for a long time". The figure of 25,000 years ago is for the first evidence of permanent settlements. These do not fit anyone's definition of a city. The first evidence of cities are from Sumer, which is what this whole thread is about.

austin-cheney 2y ago
Look, I know this is confusing (no, it isn't). The person I replied to replied to me. I never mentioned city, but they injected the word city nonetheless probably because they had no idea what they were replying to or what the words meant. What qualifies whether any fixed permanent or semi-permanent settlement is actually a city, town, hamlet, or village is entirely subjective.
- olddustytrail 2y ago
  > I never mentioned city, Yes you did: > first settled into fixed colonies/cities around 45,000 years ago
- biorach 2y ago
  > What qualifies whether any fixed permanent or semi-permanent settlement is actually a city, town, hamlet, or village is entirely subjective. nope
  - hosh 2y ago
    I'm game. What is a city?
    - biorach 2y ago
      In the context of archaeology.... a good starting point would be https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344644569_Definitions_and_Comparisons_in_Urban_Archaeology https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344644569_Definitio... Yes, the dividing lines are blurry. No, it is not totally subjective
      - hosh 2y ago
        That's a lot of different kinds of definitions, some overlap, other disagree. Seems to me a similar problem with naming and categorizing -- whether it is something useful (as a framework for thinking through things), or for communication. They all create biases in how we see things, and it isn't as if it is something intrinsic to the known universe says, that is a city.
- 7thaccount 2y ago
  I didn't inject the word "city", you did. You referred in your above post to colonies/cities that were over 45,000 years old. Although I don't doubt such a thing is possible (maybe just lost to history), my last dive into this had scholars claiming the oldest known cities to be in the range of 9,000-11,000 years old like Gobekli Tepe and its sister cities. I was just asking if that consensus still holds. I can see this is getting into semantics a bit though and what the definition of city is.

austin-cheney 2y ago

Look, I know this is confusing (no, it isn't). The person I replied to replied to me. I never mentioned city, but they injected the word city nonetheless probably because they had no idea what they were replying to or what the words meant. What qualifies whether any fixed permanent or semi-permanent settlement is actually a city, town, hamlet, or village is entirely subjective.

olddustytrail 2y ago
> I never mentioned city, Yes you did: > first settled into fixed colonies/cities around 45,000 years ago
biorach 2y ago
> What qualifies whether any fixed permanent or semi-permanent settlement is actually a city, town, hamlet, or village is entirely subjective. nope
- hosh 2y ago
  I'm game. What is a city?
  - biorach 2y ago
    In the context of archaeology.... a good starting point would be https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344644569_Definitions_and_Comparisons_in_Urban_Archaeology https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344644569_Definitio... Yes, the dividing lines are blurry. No, it is not totally subjective
    - hosh 2y ago
      That's a lot of different kinds of definitions, some overlap, other disagree. Seems to me a similar problem with naming and categorizing -- whether it is something useful (as a framework for thinking through things), or for communication. They all create biases in how we see things, and it isn't as if it is something intrinsic to the known universe says, that is a city.
7thaccount 2y ago
I didn't inject the word "city", you did. You referred in your above post to colonies/cities that were over 45,000 years old. Although I don't doubt such a thing is possible (maybe just lost to history), my last dive into this had scholars claiming the oldest known cities to be in the range of 9,000-11,000 years old like Gobekli Tepe and its sister cities. I was just asking if that consensus still holds. I can see this is getting into semantics a bit though and what the definition of city is.