RE: How far back to you think "advanced" civilizations go back?

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SpaceSpank -> RE: How far back to you think "advanced" civilizations go back? (8/14/2012 7:18:02 AM)
Not sure if serious.... [:-] Hunter gatherers would never have the technology needed (without intervention) to make it to other planets. They travel light, they tend to not make permanent structures, and they are always on the move following the food sources. This does not lead to high technology. At best it leads to refined hunting patterns and limited advancement in weapons technology. They would not be in any place long enough to worry about mining and therefore advanced metallurgy. They wouldn't be building anything more advanced that a temporary shelter... therefore no architecture or structural engineering. And that's just the major points I can think of in a few minutes. Saying a hunting and gathering society is traveling the stars is just ignoring too much. Unless of course it was MAGIC! Perhaps they had a blue genie in a bottle? The only way a society would exist as both those things is if they had already advanced, created all the technology, science, etc on their home world... then said Fuck it, you know what we need? We need to go back to before we had any of this stuff and just life a life of constant hardship with a constant threat of near starvation! And of course everyone in their society agreed... Kind of like the ending to the BSG reboot. quote: ORIGINAL: Rule No, it does not leave such a mark. The pagan gods did not have a mass production civilization, but a hunter gatherer civilization - which is the civilization that is ideally suited to colonize other planets near other stars in our galaxy. Besides: there was the Deluge, which must have swept away into the sea much of their works and artifacts.

Rule -> RE: How far back to you think "advanced" civilizations go back? (8/14/2012 7:54:42 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: SpaceSpank And that's just the major points I can think of in a few minutes. And you are wrong. This, unfortunately, is clear proof that as populations we still have some evolving to do before we attain cognition and the civilized status.

DomKen -> RE: How far back to you think "advanced" civilizations go back? (8/14/2012 8:33:25 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: RemoteUser quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen quote: ORIGINAL: Karmastic we can't even start to understand our own human history, because it's buried and melted in perhaps a few hundred thousand years of molten lava. it's laughable that up until just a few years ago, we believed the "first" great civilizations were only a couple thousand years old. we just learned that the Mayans were at it at least a couple more thousand years earlier (at least 4 thousand BC). You got a link to that? quote: it's not hard (for me) to imagine that advanced civilizations were around hundreds of thousands of years ago, and that every trace of them was buried or sucked under (the earth's plates are always slowly moving, and sucking in and spitting out, so to speak, in a continuous cycle). plates aren't subducted anywhere near fast enough for that to have happened. (decides to be helpful) The Mayan long calendar starts at either 3114 or 3113 BC, depending on the source you reference. People had to develop a calendar system before that, so something as early as 3500 BC is not farfetched. This doesn't mean they were civilized per se, but they were studying astronomy, which is noteworthy. I could give you links, but Google will provide you hundreds if you type in +"long calendar" as your search term. Just because a date is written down somewhere does not mean it was written down on that date. For instance today is not January 12, 2267. While there were certainly pre Maya cultures in central America before 2000 BC I cannot find any archaeological evidence of anything distinctly Maya prior to 2000 BC. quote: Tectonic plates don't shift fast enough to bury a civilization, but ground can break that fast, depending on the region and fault lines. California is more likely to move and raise than it is to sink; but sinking is feasible under the right circumstances. The OP was claiming plate subduction wiped out all traces of "Atlantis." That is simply impossible. While it is remotely possible that a cataclysm could wipe a single city off the map even the 2 that we know did eradicate cities didn't wipe out all traces of those cities (Minoan city of Akrotin and the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum).

LadyConstanze -> RE: How far back to you think "advanced" civilizations go back? (8/14/2012 8:44:09 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen The OP was claiming plate subduction wiped out all traces of "Atlantis." That is simply impossible. While it is remotely possible that a cataclysm could wipe a single city off the map even the 2 that we know did eradicate cities didn't wipe out all traces of those cities (Minoan city of Akrotin and the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum). Additionally, if Atlantis or anything else was so highly evolved, it would have spread, highly evolved cultures also tend to be rather aggressive and expansive, it would be highly unlikely that "Atlantis" didn't trade or have a bit of warfare, so some of their technology would be found in the surrounding areas, the ones that didn't conveniently sink without a trace. More likely that a city was the victim of a tsunami or an earthquake and then myth turned it into the promised land where milk and honey flowed and they had all the technical advancements we can't even dream of

SpaceSpank -> RE: How far back to you think "advanced" civilizations go back? (8/14/2012 8:53:58 AM)
And you are wrong... see how easy that is? Care to put any meat on the plate with that argument? Because any advanced star faring civilization has a few things that would be absolutely required... and hunter gatherers would not rise to that level because they are in a constant state of movement and worry over the next season (if not the next day). Unless your definition of hunter gatherer is something ridiculously off the wall and not actually a hunter/gatherer society at all. Things they would need: 1) An energy source powerful enough to at "least" propel several crafts out of the atmosphere. This is assuming they are all super long lived, can enter some form of suspended animation with little/no negative consequences, and thus only require sub light speeds (VERY sub light). This means it would take them hundreds, if not thousands (or more), years to reach anything... and that's a 1 way trip each time. Energy requirements go WAY up if you are going to talk about FTL (if even possible). This is ignoring food/water/atmospheric storage for such a long trip. No hunter gatherer society would NEED anything like this. They need fire to warm, cook, and tan hides. The most they would need would be some form of low voltage device for lighting. But as they do not stay in 1 location, that leaves mining, advanced metallurgy, and anything more than basic chemistry out of the picture. So most likely.. torches, basic oil lamps (using animal or plant oils as exist there). Nothing that would enable them to provide the kinds of power to even run a high efficiency automobile properly, let alone a space faring vessel. 2) An actual ship capable of this sort of trip. Most of our devices will break down within a few hundred years in space.. and they are nowhere near as complex as a full space faring transportation vessel. Metal smiting would be basic scraps hammered into shapes. No forging, purifying, or blending. It would be scrap easily found and re-purposed in their travels. But more than likely their materials would be bone, sturdy plant matter, rock/glass (like obsidian), and maybe the occasional hard gemstone (like diamond) if it exists in quantity on the surface. Again, nothing they would ever use would lead them to advancements like those needed to actually build this sort of craft. And once again, that's just 2 HUGE issues, not even getting into minutiae like food, air, water systems, medical care. etc. There is a reason every major technological society on Earth has come from societies that moved away from a hunter/gatherer model. Agrarian societies set the frame work to give people the ability and time to actually come up with these advancements... and they pose an entirely different set of challenges as time goes on. Those challenges spur on the advancements in areas that are needed for the sort of thing you're talking about. quote: ORIGINAL: Rule And you are wrong. This, unfortunately, is clear proof that as populations we still have some evolving to do before we attain cognition and the civilized status.

RemoteUser -> RE: How far back to you think "advanced" civilizations go back? (8/14/2012 9:58:10 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen Just because a date is written down somewhere does not mean it was written down on that date. For instance today is not January 12, 2267. While there were certainly pre Maya cultures in central America before 2000 BC I cannot find any archaeological evidence of anything distinctly Maya prior to 2000 BC. Carbon dating goes back to 2600 BC (midden at Cuello). You could argue that the Mayans used 600-year old materials, but that's subjective. It also depends on your take re: carbon dating. quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen The OP was claiming plate subduction wiped out all traces of "Atlantis." That is simply impossible. While it is remotely possible that a cataclysm could wipe a single city off the map even the 2 that we know did eradicate cities didn't wipe out all traces of those cities (Minoan city of Akrotin and the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum). Ahh. That, I would agree with, although a sinkhole over 100 Km long could easily wipe out a budding civilization. No proof of that either, of course.

DomKen -> RE: How far back to you think "advanced" civilizations go back? (8/14/2012 10:21:18 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: RemoteUser quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen Just because a date is written down somewhere does not mean it was written down on that date. For instance today is not January 12, 2267. While there were certainly pre Maya cultures in central America before 2000 BC I cannot find any archaeological evidence of anything distinctly Maya prior to 2000 BC. Carbon dating goes back to 2600 BC (midden at Cuello). You could argue that the Mayans used 600-year old materials, but that's subjective. It also depends on your take re: carbon dating. Found a paper in Nature on the subject. While the materail in the trash pit goes back that far that doesn't say anything about the material culture. Obviously there will be no bright dividing line between pre Mayan cultures and the Mayans. But I think its pretty clear we have no evidence that the Mayan culture was writing down dates in 3113 BC (which is the date they assigned to the creation of the universe and fairly obviously should not be treated as an accurate historical document).

Karmastic -> RE: How far back to you think "advanced" civilizations go back? (8/14/2012 10:35:41 AM)
wow, thank you everyone, especially those who added the meat and links that i left out. i very much enjoyed all your takes on it! one thing no one mentioned, besides subduction. meteors could easily wipe out huge sections of land and vaporized any traces of a civilization. e.g., we know a huge one hit the American continent (Central?). and it's true that more "advanced" civilizations spread out, so traces would still be found. and i think there are traces, but we don't realize it. someone mentioned inventions that don't go anywhere, or i might add, perhaps even seed an idea much later. to Rule - i don't agree with all your theories, but i admire you sticking to your guns! i could see an advanced society going back to its roots after a catastrophe (probably man-made). it's perfectly plausible to me. also, i think you're assuming Pagans were the first organized religion/society. considering how each new religion rips off ideas from earlier ones, and considering how "advanced" Paganism is/was. i think it's safe to assume there were earlier religions before Paganism.

RemoteUser -> RE: How far back to you think "advanced" civilizations go back? (8/14/2012 10:47:46 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen quote: ORIGINAL: RemoteUser quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen Just because a date is written down somewhere does not mean it was written down on that date. For instance today is not January 12, 2267. While there were certainly pre Maya cultures in central America before 2000 BC I cannot find any archaeological evidence of anything distinctly Maya prior to 2000 BC. Carbon dating goes back to 2600 BC (midden at Cuello). You could argue that the Mayans used 600-year old materials, but that's subjective. It also depends on your take re: carbon dating. Found a paper in Nature on the subject. While the materail in the trash pit goes back that far that doesn't say anything about the material culture. Obviously there will be no bright dividing line between pre Mayan cultures and the Mayans. But I think its pretty clear we have no evidence that the Mayan culture was writing down dates in 3113 BC (which is the date they assigned to the creation of the universe and fairly obviously should not be treated as an accurate historical document). I see what you're saying. Fair enough. [:)]

Rule -> RE: How far back to you think "advanced" civilizations go back? (8/14/2012 11:47:55 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: SpaceSpank hunter gatherers would not rise to that level because they are in a constant state of movement and worry over the next season (if not the next day). Unless your definition of hunter gatherer is something ridiculously off the wall and not actually a hunter/gatherer society at all. Well, you see, it is not I who does not know what he is talking about, but you. I quote from Wikipedia: quote: Time available for leisure varies from one society to the next, although anthropologists have found that hunter-gatherers tend to have significantly more leisure time than people in more complex societies. As a result, band societies such as the Shoshone of the Great Basin came across as extraordinarily lazy to European colonialists. So you see, hunter gatherers have far more spare time to develop an advanced science and technology than we do. quote: ORIGINAL: SpaceSpank Things they would need: 1) An energy source powerful enough to at "least" propel several crafts out of the atmosphere. Actually, aircraft/spacecraft drives are easily made. Especially since propelling is not required to move outside of the atmosphere. Nor actually does one need spacecraft to move outside of the atmosphere - but doing so without spacecraft does require far more advanced technology. quote: ORIGINAL: SpaceSpank This is assuming they are all super long lived, I guess that you never heard about the immortal pagan gods, nor about the elixir of youth? quote: ORIGINAL: SpaceSpank can enter some form of suspended animation with little/no negative consequences, and thus only require sub light speeds (VERY sub light). This means it would take them hundreds, if not thousands (or more), years to reach anything... and that's a 1 way trip each time. So? One can get quite far at five or ten percent of the velocity of light, given time. quote: ORIGINAL: SpaceSpank Energy requirements go WAY up if you are going to talk about FTL (if even possible). I do not know that FTL is possible. quote: ORIGINAL: SpaceSpank This is ignoring food/water/atmospheric storage for such a long trip. You ought to read some generation ship science fiction. That was solved a long time ago. (You travel in an ecology - perfect for hunter gatherers.) quote: ORIGINAL: SpaceSpank No hunter gatherer society would NEED anything like this. They need fire to warm, cook, and tan hides. The most they would need would be some form of low voltage device for lighting. But as they do not stay in 1 location, that leaves mining, advanced metallurgy, and anything more than basic chemistry out of the picture. So most likely.. torches, basic oil lamps (using animal or plant oils as exist there). Nothing that would enable them to provide the kinds of power to even run a high efficiency automobile properly, let alone a space faring vessel. I am talking about advanced cognitive human beings, not about the animal status human beings like most of us contemporary humans. quote: ORIGINAL: SpaceSpank 2) An actual ship capable of this sort of trip. Most of our devices will break down within a few hundred years in space.. and they are nowhere near as complex as a full space faring transportation vessel. I am not talking about our devices. quote: ORIGINAL: SpaceSpank Metal smiting would be basic scraps hammered into shapes. No forging, purifying, or blending. It would be scrap easily found and re-purposed in their travels. But more than likely their materials would be bone, sturdy plant matter, rock/glass (like obsidian), and maybe the occasional hard gemstone (like diamond) if it exists in quantity on the surface. Again, nothing they would ever use would lead them to advancements like those needed to actually build this sort of craft. You are still thinking about animal status human beings. I am talking about pagan god type human beings. People have been mining all kinds of stuff for thousands of years. quote: ORIGINAL: SpaceSpank And once again, that's just 2 HUGE issues, not even getting into minutiae like food, air, water systems, medical care. etc. Pff, in classical times in Greece one could go to a temple and get cured from whatever overnight. One guy was curious what happened in such a temple and climbed a tree to look in. He got a push, fell down and lost both eyes. He was brought into the temple and the next day he had grown a new pair of eyes. quote: ORIGINAL: SpaceSpank There is a reason every major technological society on Earth has come from societies that moved away from a hunter/gatherer model. Agrarian societies set the frame work to give people the ability and time to actually come up with these advancements... and they pose an entirely different set of challenges as time goes on. Those challenges spur on the advancements in areas that are needed for the sort of thing you're talking about. I have shown that you are wrong. See above.

littlewonder -> RE: How far back to you think "advanced" civilizations go back? (8/14/2012 12:11:05 PM)
quote: They would not be in any place long enough to worry about mining and therefore advanced metallurgy. They wouldn't be building anything more advanced that a temporary shelter... therefore no architecture or structural engineering. Not necessarily. With the discovery of Gobekli Tepe, it is now thought that it was a temple built by hunters/gatherers who probably traveled as nomads but worshiped at this temple that they built around 11,000 years ago. No actual human remains or remains of their living at the site are present to show they actually lived there. This discovery has started to change the way we view early civilization. It is usually thought that man didn't start to build temples to worship at until they became an agricultural society and had time to worship and work on building a society. But Gobekli Tepe has now made us reevaluate that theory.

Rule -> RE: How far back to you think "advanced" civilizations go back? (8/14/2012 12:27:36 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: littlewonder Not necessarily. With the discovery of Gobekli Tepe, it is now thought that it was a temple built by hunters/gatherers who probably traveled as nomads but worshiped at this temple that they built around 11,000 years ago. No actual human remains or remains of their living at the site are present to show they actually lived there. This discovery has started to change the way we view early civilization. It is usually thought that man didn't start to build temples to worship at until they became an agricultural society and had time to worship and work on building a society. But Gobekli Tepe has now made us reevaluate that theory. Actually I am not convinced that it was a place for worshipping, like a church. I suspect that it was an assembly hall: "The gods in assembly discussed..." And if they indeed were the immortal pagan gods - in a fairly early stage of their civilization, I suspect - then it is to be expected that no human remains were found: they did not die.

FrostedFlake -> RE: How far back to you think "advanced" civilizations go back? (8/14/2012 12:44:10 PM)
One of the problems in determining the earliest point at which humans exhibited advanced culture (Meaning, What?) is post ice age sea level rise. [image]http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/gornitz_09/slr.jpg[/image] http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/gornitz_09/ Most people live near the sea. It is where the food is. Where the transportation is. It is tough to get anything done when you have to haul everything up a hill to get it home. A hundred twenty meters is about 400 feet. This is the zone folks would have built in prior to the classically recognized advent of civilization. And this zone is now under water. The place to look for evidence of early advanced civilization is in shallow seas. And, inexplicably, atop Andean Mountains. That is to say, where the tops of Andean Mountains USED TO BE. [image]http://imgupld.lunaticoutpost.com/graphic/images/2012/January/07/401D_4F089EB9.jpg[/image]

DomKen -> RE: How far back to you think "advanced" civilizations go back? (8/14/2012 12:51:01 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Karmastic wow, thank you everyone, especially those who added the meat and links that i left out. i very much enjoyed all your takes on it! one thing no one mentioned, besides subduction. meteors could easily wipe out huge sections of land and vaporized any traces of a civilization. e.g., we know a huge one hit the American continent (Central?). We'd find the traces of a big meteor. The Chixiculb meteor, the Central America one, left unmistakable evidence all over the Earth and that thing hit 65 million years ago. The Barringer crater is 49k years old and there certainly hasn't been a significantly bigger strike since the Eocene which is long before hominids evolved and the Barrinbger rock wasn't big enough to wipe out even a small community.. quote: and it's true that more "advanced" civilizations spread out, so traces would still be found. and i think there are traces, but we don't realize it. someone mentioned inventions that don't go anywhere, or i might add, perhaps even seed an idea much later. We'de notice. Roads, mine sites, quarries, worked farm fields and the like are pretty obvious even after millenia of abandonment.

DomKen -> RE: How far back to you think "advanced" civilizations go back? (8/14/2012 12:54:39 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: FrostedFlake Most people live near the sea. It is where the food is. Where the transportation is. It is tough to get anything done when you have to haul everything up a hill to get it home. A hundred twenty meters is about 400 feet. This is the zone folks would have built in prior to the classically recognized advent of civilization. And this zone is now under water. The place to look for evidence of early advanced civilization is in shallow seas. And, inexplicably, atop Andean Mountains. That is to say, where the tops of Andean Mountains USED TO BE. We've done a lot of archaeology in such areas and we have found nothing indicative of advanced technolgy. Anyway why wouldn't an advanced culture simply move inland as the sea level rose, it took centuries.

Karmastic -> RE: How far back to you think "advanced" civilizations go back? (8/14/2012 12:55:56 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: littlewonder quote: They would not be in any place long enough to worry about mining and therefore advanced metallurgy. They wouldn't be building anything more advanced that a temporary shelter... therefore no architecture or structural engineering. Not necessarily. With the discovery of Gobekli Tepe, it is now thought that it was a temple built by hunters/gatherers who probably traveled as nomads but worshiped at this temple that they built around 11,000 years ago. No actual human remains or remains of their living at the site are present to show they actually lived there. This discovery has started to change the way we view early civilization. It is usually thought that man didn't start to build temples to worship at until they became an agricultural society and had time to worship and work on building a society. But Gobekli Tepe has now made us reevaluate that theory. THANK YOU! this is the stuff i was getting at, but didn't know about this case.

Rule -> RE: How far back to you think "advanced" civilizations go back? (8/14/2012 1:00:48 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Karmastic didn't know about this case. National Geographic recently - one or two months ago - broadcasted a documentary about it. That is how I learned about it.

Karmastic -> RE: How far back to you think "advanced" civilizations go back? (8/14/2012 1:01:40 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen quote: ORIGINAL: Karmastic wow, thank you everyone, especially those who added the meat and links that i left out. i very much enjoyed all your takes on it! one thing no one mentioned, besides subduction. meteors could easily wipe out huge sections of land and vaporized any traces of a civilization. e.g., we know a huge one hit the American continent (Central?). We'd find the traces of a big meteor. The Chixiculb meteor, the Central America one, left unmistakable evidence all over the Earth and that thing hit 65 million years ago. The Barringer crater is 49k years old and there certainly hasn't been a significantly bigger strike since the Eocene which is long before hominids evolved and the Barrinbger rock wasn't big enough to wipe out even a small community.. quote: and it's true that more "advanced" civilizations spread out, so traces would still be found. and i think there are traces, but we don't realize it. someone mentioned inventions that don't go anywhere, or i might add, perhaps even seed an idea much later. We'de notice. Roads, mine sites, quarries, worked farm fields and the like are pretty obvious even after millenia of abandonment. re your first answer...we agree, would find traces. you're sort of arguing FOR my point, which was that there WERE big meteors, and they can and did cause extermination events, and could have buried advanced civilizations. re your second answer...i will respectfully disagree. i've seen entire pyramids buried, in what looks like a hill. and i've seen the remains of ancient sites (well, on TV), and see how degraded they are, and not that old. it often takes artists renderings to imagine what was there before. and as FrostedFlake pointed out, much of it is probably in shallow seas, or atop mountains where seas once were nearby.

Karmastic -> RE: How far back to you think "advanced" civilizations go back? (8/14/2012 1:13:46 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Rule quote: ORIGINAL: Karmastic didn't know about this case. National Geographic recently - one or two months ago - broadcasted a documentary about it. That is how I learned about it. thanks, downloading to watch later.

DomKen -> RE: How far back to you think "advanced" civilizations go back? (8/14/2012 1:14:29 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Karmastic quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen quote: ORIGINAL: Karmastic wow, thank you everyone, especially those who added the meat and links that i left out. i very much enjoyed all your takes on it! one thing no one mentioned, besides subduction. meteors could easily wipe out huge sections of land and vaporized any traces of a civilization. e.g., we know a huge one hit the American continent (Central?). We'd find the traces of a big meteor. The Chixiculb meteor, the Central America one, left unmistakable evidence all over the Earth and that thing hit 65 million years ago. The Barringer crater is 49k years old and there certainly hasn't been a significantly bigger strike since the Eocene which is long before hominids evolved and the Barrinbger rock wasn't big enough to wipe out even a small community.. quote: and it's true that more "advanced" civilizations spread out, so traces would still be found. and i think there are traces, but we don't realize it. someone mentioned inventions that don't go anywhere, or i might add, perhaps even seed an idea much later. We'de notice. Roads, mine sites, quarries, worked farm fields and the like are pretty obvious even after millenia of abandonment. re your first answer...we agree, would find traces. you're sort of arguing FOR my point, which was that there WERE big meteors, and they can and did cause extermination events, and could have buried advanced civilizations. No. No meteor big enough has hit the Earth since hominids evolved. quote: re your second answer...i will respectfully disagree. i've seen entire pyramids buried, in what looks like a hill. and i've seen the remains of ancient sites (well, on TV), and see how degraded they are, and not that old. it often takes artists renderings to imagine what was there b It may take an artist to show you what it looked like before but it was found because, even buried, human structures do not look like natural formations. Archaeologists have found undiscovered sites by examining satellite images.

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