4 replies to this topic

[Gray-Wolf]

http://www.scienceda...10127141651.htm

I'm probably very behind the times but I thought we got 'out of Africa' 60,000yrs ago?

Even longer on the planet surely adds weight to 'pre ice age civilisations'?

[Gray-Wolf]

Well I ' thought it was interesting'!!!

I kinda hold with the ideas that 'Civilisation' is also a lot older than we give credit for and what we see as the 'birth' of civilisations is really the 're-group' of climate refugees from the climate change that hide the evidence of those proto civilisations.

Our need for water seems to go hand in hand with early civilisations so what we know as 'ideal' spots for the dawn of civilisation are now many tens of metres below the present sea levels. If man started to settle into organised communities during the last ice age (or earlier???) then the amount of land that would have been exposed at that time (perfect for mans needs) is now swamped by the final inundations of the end of the last glaciation.

If we look at the North sea basin, and track the Rhine south, we would have found a great prairie stocked full of game. We'd have had huge swamps where the Thames and Seine joined the Rhine on its journey south and an area of near Med. climate where the Grand river poured into the Atlantic of Portugal.

Look at it this way , if it only takes 5 thousand years for man to move from tribal hunter gatherer communities (well connected by 'trade links') then why did this only occur in the past 7 thousand years? If we truly left Africa 120 thousand years ago why did it take us so long to embark on this path? Is it unreasonable to think that we may have arisen before only to be thwarted in our efforts to 'evolve' by Mother Nature's climatic shifts (rapid climate change)?

[Essan]

Gray-Wolf, on 29 January 2011 - 10:01 , said:

Look at it this way , if it only takes 5 thousand years for man to move from tribal hunter gatherer communities (well connected by 'trade links') then why did this only occur in the past 7 thousand years? If we truly left Africa 120 thousand years ago why did it take us so long to embark on this path?

How long ago our ancestors left Africa makes no difference. And even today, some people have not moved from tribal hunter gather communities. Left alone, Aborigines in Australia and New Guinea, the Kalahari Bush People and the Amazonia Tribes would still be living in a the stone age in maybe 100,000 years time. They have no need to develop beyond that form of society because it provides all they need.

What caused the development of human civilisation was climate change - initially producing more favourable conditions allowing for larger population growth and then abruptly taking those conditions away - such that we had to adapt or die. And adaption meant making things and working together in a way we'd never had to before. It may be that such circumstance arose in different parts of the world many times in the past 100,000 years and every time before we were found wanting. Fortunately for us (maybe less so for the world) around 6,000 years ago we succeeded in overcoming the problems climate change imposed on us. And never looked back.


Edit: that said, I have often speculated that a number of proto-civilisations may have emerged during the last Ice Age - in coastal regions now inundated.

Edited by Essan, 29 January 2011 - 15:29 .

[Gray-Wolf]

Hi Essan!

Yup , it's more that "Proto" civilisation (or 'settled' living'?) when they found themselves where food was ubiquitous all year around? With 'food wealth' comes the opportunity to 'sit and think' (without the press of survival on their heads). With thought comes 'innovation' of the methods they utilise to survive and the emergence of a class of folk who are 'paid' to look after the spiritual well being of the group (above and beyond that of shaman) and the chance for leaders to be treated similar.

Without the press to 'survive' on their heads things like the the wider questions of being can seek to be addressed by a 'food waged' elite (and gaining an 'understanding' that suits their time/situation?)

There must have been many such situations in the med/Europe/Eurasia over such a time period and maybe some of that knowledge trickles down to us today (and not just the 'Flood Myths' that reflect the final inundation, post ice age....be they Black Sea /Med./ or even North Sea!).

EDIT: Like who were the Norse 'Frost Giants'? We can see the Neaderthals who survived through the ice ages as a candidate for such (blown up in scale by the 'telling') and viewed quite dimly by the sophistication of the 'incomers' (with their advanced tools/methods of survival)? These folk were gone from N.Europe 30,000yrs ago so how would those folk know of them??? Maybe because the generations pre-ice age ran into them???

Edited by Gray-Wolf, 29 January 2011 - 16:50 .