I always liked one theory I read that Atlantis was inspired by an ancient city in Anatolia that fell into a lake after a big earthquake. The city was connected with Greek legends of Tantalis, and referred to in Hittite lore. So, while Plato generally did make up Atlantis as a model of his theoretical perfect society, the name and the idea came from the lost city (Tantalis/Atlantis are pretty similar). To be sure, the location of the 'real Atlantis' has been put about everywhere, this one has more of a ring of truth about it than the others...
What is the earliest possible time that civilization could have emerged?
- Thread starter Mitchell Hundred
- Start date
I always liked one theory I read that Atlantis was inspired by an ancient city in Anatolia that fell into a lake after a big earthquake. The city was connected with Greek legends of Tantalis, and referred to in Hittite lore. So, while Plato generally did make up Atlantis as a model of his theoretical perfect society, the name and the idea came from the lost city (Tantalis/Atlantis are pretty similar). To be sure, the location of the 'real Atlantis' has been put about everywhere, this one has more of a ring of truth about it than the others...
Atlantis?
City that fell into a lake?
Between 5000 BC and 6000 BC, the Bosporus flooded and filled the Black Sea to sea level. Presumably, an "old" Black Sea sat somewhat below sea level and if so, supported farming communities and villages/cities near its shores. The flood is considered by many as the basis of the story of Noah's Ark.
The region would have flooded faster than people could escape or salvage property. Stories of the grandeur of the lost communities might have propagated, urban legend style, and dispersed into folklore legends of an Atlantis.
City that fell into a lake?
Between 5000 BC and 6000 BC, the Bosporus flooded and filled the Black Sea to sea level. Presumably, an "old" Black Sea sat somewhat below sea level and if so, supported farming communities and villages/cities near its shores. The flood is considered by many as the basis of the story of Noah's Ark.
The region would have flooded faster than people could escape or salvage property. Stories of the grandeur of the lost communities might have propagated, urban legend style, and dispersed into folklore legends of an Atlantis.
A largely discredited hypothesis. There is a growing consensus for a slower inflow of flooding from the Sea of Marmara over a longer period of time (centuries). So ancient shorelines were submerged but not a la a catastrophic Noah's Flood-like scenario. Also this event took place a couple of millenia earlier than the Flood hypothesis.
Given the complexity of language, I have never understood the obsession with the "language revolution" idea - to me it seems much more likely that it was many, many smaller revolutions.
The Hom saps who entered North America had a big technological leg up on the first Hom saps to get into Eurasia and even on the first Hom saps to reach Australia. Indeed, the peoples of Siberia c. 20kya may have been one of the most advanced cultures on the planet (or they just look like it because the climate has preserved so much of their artifacts). Point is, that is alot more capability to control the environment, thus alot more capability to sustain more optimum breeding conditions.
The more primitive peoples who first colonized Eurasia, having less impressive technology, wouldn't have been able to sustain the same rate of increase - plus there were a few instances of sheer major league bad luck during the colonization like the Toba eruption, which certainly would have reduced populations in the best bits of Eurasia. Regardless of the actual reasons though, the colonization of Eurasia and population increase in Eurasia and Africa seem to be much slower than the population increases the American paleocolonists were experiencing.
Actually, maybe there is an answer to the original question - no Toba eruption. That would certainly lead to larger populations earlier in Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, Siberia, the coast of the indies and Oceania... I'd even bet on an earlier colonization of North America, though it would have to be done by canoeing between hunting camps on the ice...
I have read that the Toba eruption hurt the Indian and Chinese Homo erectus populations harder than the Hom sap populations, and folks theorize that this may have accelerated the Hom sap colonization of India and East Asia. If that is right, then technological and genetic development in Eurasia is majorly changed, India seems to be, after Africa, the most important site for Homo sapiens development of genetic diversity. It is also an are of major tool innovation - Hom sap conquered Europe with the tools they developed in India. So a different development of Indian Homo sapiens populations is really going to change who we are today.
I suspect that with a retarded development of Homo sapiens in India, the Persian Gulf valley will be the major development center. I also suspect that East Asian and Oceanian Hom sap populations will have alot more Homo erectus DNA in their pool.
fasquardon
Actually, the latest interpretations point to virtually no period of living side by side. Of course, this is very new and controversial, but it seems that early Homo sapiens sapiens tools may have been miss-identified as Neanderthal tools, meaning dates for the Neanderthal extinction were off by almost 20ky. The new interpretation is for only about 5ky of contact, all of that taking the form of Homo sapiens sapiens sweeping from east to west in tide that the Neanderthals did not stem.
Here's the link to the New Scientist article.
So if this is correct, Homo sapiens sapiens was already in possession of its "killer app" - no need to invoke mystical changes that we can't prove the presence or absence of.
Also, it is worth mentioning that even the very earliest Homo sapiens sapiens finds show evidence of sexual division of labour (Neanderthals and Homo erectus men and women seem to have both done mostly the same jobs by contrast). To me that would suggest language of some sort was already well developed, since that degree of specialization and cooperation generally takes alot of talking in modern populations.
And while the hints on the Neanderthal social life aren't as strongly attested, I very much doubt that Neanderthals could live in bands the size they did and do the things they were doing without some form of language of their own.
fasquardon
Perhaps New Guinea is a good place to a start? It's tropical, mountainous and it's population goes back at least 60,000 years ago; even the then rather colder Highlands may well have been populated by 50,000 years ago.
Furthermore, Australia was connected by land at the time, and it was certainly developing many then-advanced technologies: Ground stone tools, monumental artwork, and possibly even seaworthy watercraft were all first invented in Australia.
Also, see this earlier thread.
Furthermore, Australia was connected by land at the time, and it was certainly developing many then-advanced technologies: Ground stone tools, monumental artwork, and possibly even seaworthy watercraft were all first invented in Australia.
Also, see this earlier thread.
Bavarian Raven
Banned
Personally, I don't think that theory holds much weight in my honest opinion (at least from all the readings I have done on the subject, that, and the fact that "we" (Eurasians) almost all have 2-5% Neanderthal DNA. But that's just my opinion.
~
No Toba eruption could be a good POD.
Or simply someone getting lucky. Someone early on notices (after, say, collecting wild barely or the such) that when a basket spills, the next spring there is a dense clump of barely to be found there.
That, or one band of hunter-gatherers clears the unwanted brush away from an already dense patch of berry bushes/fruit trees (maybe to get easier access to the bushes, or to stop said unwanted bushes from "pushing out" the fruit bushes/fruit trees). They notice that this promotes better growth of said fruit and the idea takes hold. Because of the easier access to nutritious food and a larger intake of vitamins, more of their offspring survive. The idea spreads and bang, we have proto-agriculture (or permaculture, lol) taking hold... and things spiral from there...
Just my three cents. Cheers.
The evidence at the moment is that this mixing all happened in the middle east. There is no evidence whatsoever of mixing with European Neanderthals.
Indeed, modern Europeans have some of the lowest complements of Neanderthal DNA of all the exo-African populations.
Not to say there was no mixing in Europe, but clearly it was very minor if it did happen (if you ask me, it's practically inevitable that it would happen, I mean, Neanderthals and Hom sap sap aren't that different - and we are a species that will have sex with chimpanzees and farmyard chickens for pete's sake).
The quick replacement theory would certainly help explain why there wasn't much mixing.
Or simply someone getting lucky. Someone early on notices (after, say, collecting wild barely or the such) that when a basket spills, the next spring there is a dense clump of barely to be found there.
That, or one band of hunter-gatherers clears the unwanted brush away from an already dense patch of berry bushes/fruit trees (maybe to get easier access to the bushes, or to stop said unwanted bushes from "pushing out" the fruit bushes/fruit trees). They notice that this promotes better growth of said fruit and the idea takes hold. Because of the easier access to nutritious food and a larger intake of vitamins, more of their offspring survive. The idea spreads and bang, we have proto-agriculture (or permaculture, lol) taking hold... and things spiral from there...
First, permaculture is a long, long way from proto-agriculture. Permaculture is the most scientifically intensive form of agriculture in existence - which helps explain why it took until the 20th Century before we even started to develop it.
Second, your "lucky break" is, ahm, not copasetic with the realities of hunter-gatherer knowledge. Most hunter gatherer groups are very aware that seeds put in soul will result in plants growing in that place later on. It is just that this isn't a very useful piece of information on its own. Most hunter gatherer groups have better ways of getting food. MUCH better ways of getting food. Much MUCH much MUCH better ways. At least, if their population is low.
If population is really high, and their choice is starving or nursemaid some seeds with back-breaking labour all year, then nursemaiding seeds becomes useful, and knowing that spilled barley results in wheat plants on that patch later becomes a useful piece of information, and refining the knowledge adds to the usefulness.
But without the special conditions to make the "lucky break" useful, it's about as useful to the hunter gatherers as knowing that the sky is blue. It gives them an answer for when the kids are bugging them with questions, but it has no bearing on practical life.
fasquardon
Genetic evidence indicates that fertile hybrids were not a common result of mixings, but there is considerable variety in the Neanderthal DNA present in humans. Indicating that we still managed to produce quite a number of hybrids.
I believe you may be confusing Neanderthals with Denisovans on the European DNA percentages, Europeans are the population group with the greatest amount of Neanderthal DNA. And the genome with the absolute champion percentage is -Otzi the Iceman! Far higher in Neandertal than any human alive today.
Bavarian Raven
Banned
I know, but i used it as an example to illustrate how an alternate form of "farming" might arise. A case of where people remove "Weed" plants to promote the growth of certain edible/medicinal plants, and this leading to a quasi form of farming arising. I just used the term permaculture because it seemed most fitting, though food forest farming might have been a better term.
Have a look at fire-stick farming; not true agriculture, but rather close.
Err... We are currently IN an interglacial, almost certainly. Except for anthropogenic warming.
I proposed a possible rise during the previous Interglacial.
And civilization certainly could survive in an 'Ice Age' (glaciation event), if only in the tropics or subtropics.
Totally off topic. To address the title of the thread - 7am, but only after coffee.
The previous interglacial was, I think, too far back for any hominids to have the technology to develop civilization. (It ran from 130kya to 115kya.)
At that point, Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo sapiens neanderthalensis were living side by side in the Middle East (which is where most of the interbreeding happened), but when the climate worsened Homo sapiens sapiens was pushed out of the Middle East and into North Africa.
In South Africa, there seems to have been a very advanced group whose technology has been compared to that of the European Mammoth hunters of 30kya. But again, when climate worsened, the group seems to have lost much of its sophistication.
So the picture we have of peoples at this time is telling us that they were much more at the mercy of the climate than their descendants would be. They needed more tricks in their bag to fight back with, so they didn't end up losing most of their bag of tricks with every bad turn.
fasquardon
I looked a little further. The proposal that the Black Sea sat at a lower elevation and rose when sea level topped the Bosphorus has been discredited because the net flow is now out of that sea. The Black Sea, during the Ice Age, would have been a lake several hundred feet above sea level. The Dardanelles would have been something like a waterfall between the Sea of Marmara to the Aegean Sea. Until sea level covered the two straits (Bosphorus and Dardanelles) we can imagine the potential for unexpected flooding if a broken dam of rocks suddenly gave way to lower the Black Sea by only a few feet.
Wow, I'd never heard that the glaciation period had more unstable climates than the interglacial we live in now. I'd have guessed the opposite since interglacials are short compared to glaciations; it isn't clear to me why they'd have more stable climates than during glaciations. If I read the charts posted a page back correctly I suppose the point is made. That certainly would seem to have a bearing on why no precocious civilization has been found before the continental glaciers started their retreat.
There's a recent ASB thread I've been participating in that asks what if our species had somehow arisen in the Americas instead of Africa; there I've been pretty foursquare for the idea that no one founds any civs until after the glacial retreat is largely accomplished and the sea levels have risen to near current levels.
The idea that the last glaciation was simply too cold or dry or whatever does not fly with me; for everyplace that we consider hospitable today that was under ice or tundra or taiga too cold to be an early civilization center I figure there would be someplace else that was more optimal for it then than today. But if those reasonable cradles were constantly being shifted around I can see why that would discourage the necessary chain of developments that could lead to proper civilizations, I guess. So that does explain a lot.
Put me down for the camp that says that if a proper, full civilization could have developed during the last glaciation somewhere, it would leave clear traces today--we'd inherit probably not one but several agricultural plants from that era; the civ would have spread out so that even if extinguished in its heartland some colony somewhere would expand on newly-hospitable land; they'd have done some earthworks that would leave traces; bottom line, even if the descendants of this high age fell on hard times, humanity would have hit the early interglacial era running and we'd have the first great cities on lands they could exist in today some five thousands of years before OTL early civilization dates.
We don't find traces; my belief is that that is because the hypothetical pre-interglacial civ never existed.
Also the way I understand things, our species is not so old we could have been around during the last interglacial; the relevant time scale is therefore under 100,000 years before present.
I do think language formation was a "trigger" event but that it happened about 100,000 years ago in Africa, and what it triggered was the spread of ours species through that continent and then past the Red Sea north and south of it (via Yemen) into Eurasia and beyond. I'm on the fence as to how early the very first colonization of the Americas took place after that, but it would seem clear enough that the vast majority of Native American ancestry came in after the ice barriers began to die back, just in the last 12,000 years.
Neanderthals, I've been given to understand, had brains just as big as ours, but with a different layout--one that in particular does not make room for development of key brain centers our brains use to process speech, understanding it and uttering it.
It might be possible that instead their brains enabled language by another path, using different deep grammar.
But I'm partial to S. Mithin's "Singing Neanderthal" hypothesis, that language in our species ultimately derives from song which derives from dance, whereas Neanderthals would be quite good with music--perhaps commincating far more than we can imagine.
Nevertheless despite their quite-large brains I don't think Neanderthals or other pre-H.sapiens sapiens hominid cousins could found civilizations, though I do think they might participate in one founded by members of our species (and presumably contribute unique skills to it.
There's a recent ASB thread I've been participating in that asks what if our species had somehow arisen in the Americas instead of Africa; there I've been pretty foursquare for the idea that no one founds any civs until after the glacial retreat is largely accomplished and the sea levels have risen to near current levels.
The idea that the last glaciation was simply too cold or dry or whatever does not fly with me; for everyplace that we consider hospitable today that was under ice or tundra or taiga too cold to be an early civilization center I figure there would be someplace else that was more optimal for it then than today. But if those reasonable cradles were constantly being shifted around I can see why that would discourage the necessary chain of developments that could lead to proper civilizations, I guess. So that does explain a lot.
Put me down for the camp that says that if a proper, full civilization could have developed during the last glaciation somewhere, it would leave clear traces today--we'd inherit probably not one but several agricultural plants from that era; the civ would have spread out so that even if extinguished in its heartland some colony somewhere would expand on newly-hospitable land; they'd have done some earthworks that would leave traces; bottom line, even if the descendants of this high age fell on hard times, humanity would have hit the early interglacial era running and we'd have the first great cities on lands they could exist in today some five thousands of years before OTL early civilization dates.
We don't find traces; my belief is that that is because the hypothetical pre-interglacial civ never existed.
Also the way I understand things, our species is not so old we could have been around during the last interglacial; the relevant time scale is therefore under 100,000 years before present.
I do think language formation was a "trigger" event but that it happened about 100,000 years ago in Africa, and what it triggered was the spread of ours species through that continent and then past the Red Sea north and south of it (via Yemen) into Eurasia and beyond. I'm on the fence as to how early the very first colonization of the Americas took place after that, but it would seem clear enough that the vast majority of Native American ancestry came in after the ice barriers began to die back, just in the last 12,000 years.
Neanderthals, I've been given to understand, had brains just as big as ours, but with a different layout--one that in particular does not make room for development of key brain centers our brains use to process speech, understanding it and uttering it.
It might be possible that instead their brains enabled language by another path, using different deep grammar.
But I'm partial to S. Mithin's "Singing Neanderthal" hypothesis, that language in our species ultimately derives from song which derives from dance, whereas Neanderthals would be quite good with music--perhaps commincating far more than we can imagine.
Nevertheless despite their quite-large brains I don't think Neanderthals or other pre-H.sapiens sapiens hominid cousins could found civilizations, though I do think they might participate in one founded by members of our species (and presumably contribute unique skills to it.
Neanderthals get way way way way too much shit. There's little reason to think they could not speak or weren't intelligent enough to found a civilization:
-Neanderthals possessed a FOXP2 gene identical to that of Homo sapiens. This gene is key to language in humans.
-They had a hyoid bone "virtually identical" to that of H. sapiens. The hyoid bone allows us to use a wide range of phonemes.
-They had a hypoglossal canal the same size or larger than in H. sapiens.
-They took good care of their infirm. Several Neanderthal skeletons were found in Shanidar cave in Iraq; one of them, referred to as Shanidar I, was forty to fifty years old, old for the Pleistocene. He may have been blind in one eye, and suffered from arthritis and a ton of trauma that, evidenced by healing, took place well before his death.
-Their societies, as far as I know, were about as complex as H. sapiens'.
-They produced tools that, I believe, at one point rivaled those produced by H. sapiens.
-The earliest abstract art, found in a cave in Spain, has been attributed to them. And there may be cave art attributed to H. sapiens that can be better attributed to them. There's also evidence they used body-paint.
-Nothing about Neanderthal crania suggests they could not speak. The lack of a chin may have limited their capacity for producing bilabials, but other than that, zilch. I believe that some people point to the base of the Neanderthal skull, or something -- that it's too flat I think, but I can't remember -- but humans with similar cranial features are perfectly capable of speech.
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Arguments presuming that some sudden shift in to human linguistic ability around 40,000 BP led to the increased compexity of human cultures are entirely circumstantial, since we have no way of knowing when true language developed. They may be true. Or not. Regardless, this does not explain why some human populations with fully developed language abilities remained essentially paleolithic hunter-gatherers until the modern era while others in different parts of the world began the shift toward settled communities, intensive agriculture or pastoralism, hierarchical societies, nobilities, kings, and empires, things that define what a civilization is.
A lot of people seem to believe that there is some innate human urge to advance...and that left alone all cultures would eventually become advanced civilizations. The problem with this theory is that, by most criteria, the life of most people in a stable hunting-gathering society occupying a fertile environment is easier, happier, healthier, and offers more free time than in early sedentary civilizations where most people are either slaves, servants, or in some other way tied to the land in a rigorous intensive farming regime where somebody else takes a lot of what you produce to live in an exalted life style and make all the big decisions. People don't do this voluntarily. It takes a population/resource crisis, either caused by natural climate change or population growth in a constrained environment where people no longer have the option of just moving on to find better pickings elsewhere.
ASBs aside, if this planet were the size of Jupiter and exhibited a lush and varied temperate climate equivalent to the eastern woodlands of North America or western Europe it's my bet we would all still be living much like our upper Paleolithic ancestors some 30-30,000 years ago. We would have no reason to "civilize" ourselves.
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Depends on what you mean, for example it's possible a small civilization (say the size of a valley or two) could've emerged say 30,000 years ago somewhere isolated, though a large actual Egyptian, Chinese, Levantine etc. civilization requires more stable climate and thus not until after the Ice Age.
Yes, this is possible, but it depends what you mean by "civilization". It is possible that environmental conditions in such a small and constrained river valley or lake area 30,000 years ago could have led to sedentism and intensive resource exploitation or agriculture and then fizzled out when the limits of population growth were finally reached. However, I think that, unless this hypothetical valley or lake basin was not then inundated by the sea or lava, we would find datable archaeological evidence such as house patterns (postholes or foundations remnants), fortifications, civic structure ruins, and lots of artifacts associated with agriculture or animal domestication attesting to a fully sedentary society. Also, it is my opinion that, unless this sedentary society evolved further to the point it was hierarchical, with nobilities, rulers, writing or other forms of record-keeping, etc., it is not really a "civilization" in the classic sense.
I think Bavarian Raven was talking about just planting the seeds and then moving on hoping for the best.