12000 yr old civilization

tecoyah · Nov 17, 2012

"Compared to Stonehenge, Britain's most famous prehistoric site, they are humble affairs. None of the circles excavated (four out of an estimated 20) are more than 30 meters across. What makes the discovery remarkable are the carvings of boars, foxes, lions, birds, snakes and scorpions, and their age. Dated at around 9,500 BC, these stones are 5,500 years older than the first cities of Mesopotamia, and 7,000 years older than Stonehenge."
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav041708a.shtml

If this is accurate, could it be that humans were advanced long before the "Cradle of Civilization" began...are we missing a big part of our own history?

Cerise · Nov 17, 2012

tecoyah said:
"Compared to Stonehenge, Britain's most famous prehistoric site, they are humble affairs. None of the circles excavated (four out of an estimated 20) are more than 30 meters across. What makes the discovery remarkable are the carvings of boars, foxes, lions, birds, snakes and scorpions, and their age. Dated at around 9,500 BC, these stones are 5,500 years older than the first cities of Mesopotamia, and 7,000 years older than Stonehenge."
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav041708a.shtml

If this is accurate, could it be that humans were advanced long before the "Cradle of Civilization" began...are we missing a big part of our own history?

You might enjoy reading The 12th Planet by Zecharia Sitchin. I'm about half way through it and it details events occurring about 11,000 BC.

tecoyah · Nov 17, 2012

cool...thanx

myp · Nov 17, 2012

Don't many geologists claim that the Sphinx's weathering indicates that it too is around 12,000 years old too?

tecoyah · Nov 17, 2012

There are a few theories...interesting stuff.

ThirdTerm · Nov 17, 2012

I assume that it was a site of animal worship and researchers found that the Neanderthals and Homo sapience interbred in Israel as late as 37,000 years ago, which gave rise to modern Eurasians and our ancestors who constructed the shrine 12,000 years ago in Turkey naturally inherited Neanderthal culture of animal worship and they eventually reached Britain around 8,000 BC and built Stonehenge from 3,000 BC to 2,000 BC.

http://www.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/turkey.html

David · Nov 18, 2012

ThirdTerm said:
I assume that it was a site of animal worship and researchers found that the Neanderthals and Homo sapience interbred in Israel as late as 37,000 years ago, which gave rise to modern Eurasians and our ancestors who constructed the shrine 12,000 years ago in Turkey naturally inherited Neanderthal culture of animal worship and they eventually reached Britain around 8,000 BC and built Stonehenge from 3,000 BC to 2,000 BC.

http://www.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/turkey.html

Sometimes I wonder if the 'beautiful giants' in the Torah are neanderthals. They'd only gone extinct 20k years before so an oral history may have survived.

ThirdTerm · Nov 18, 2012

Little was known about the Neanderthals just a decade ago but recent DNA evidence showed that we are genetically linked to the Neanderthals who actually looked just like us and the Nephilim legend is likely to be based upon the Neanderthals. The Neanderthals were outnumbered by Homo sapience when they were supposed to have ceased to exist as a distinct group of people and Homo sapience and the Neanderthals co-existed for about 50,000 years, long enough to leave their genetic markers in modern humans outside Africa.

myp · Nov 18, 2012

ThirdTerm said:
Little was known about the Neanderthals just a decade ago but recent DNA evidence showed that we are genetically linked to the Neanderthals who actually looked just like us and the Nephilim legend is likely to be based upon the Neanderthals.

And you'd expect that. The thing about speciation is that it does have some level of subjectivity because evolution is a gradient as opposed to having well-defined, widespread layers.

David · Nov 18, 2012

myp said:
And you'd expect that. The thing about speciation is that it does have some level of subjectivity because evolution is a gradient as opposed to having well-defined, widespread layers.

As I understand it we're the same species (H. Sapiens) with the Neanderthals and ourselves (Sapiens Sapiens) simply being sub-species.

tecoyah · Nov 18, 2012

David said:
As I understand it we're the same species (H. Sapiens) with the Neanderthals and ourselves (Sapiens Sapiens) simply being sub-species.

That is one way to define it, another being current Homo Sapiens (Sapiens) is the result of combined genetics between what we once were (Homo Sapiens), and Neanderthal species.

myp · Nov 18, 2012

David said:
As I understand it we're the same species (H. Sapiens) with the Neanderthals and ourselves (Sapiens Sapiens) simply being sub-species.

From what I knew, we are different species, but I am not a taxonomist, so I looked it up. Turns out, there is disagreement on whether or not we are two different species Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis or whether we are the same species, but just different subspecies. Good example of what I meant when I said speciation is somewhat subjective.

David · Nov 18, 2012

myp said:
From what I knew, we are different species, but I am not a taxonomist, so I looked it up. Turns out, there is disagreement on whether or not we are two different species Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis or whether we are the same species, but just different subspecies. Good example of what I meant when I said speciation is somewhat subjective.

When dealing with related species, I define the difference at whether or not 2 populations can reliably breed viable offspring. Thus a house cat and African Lion are different species while a dog and Gray Wolf are simply variants of the same species. As 75% of modern Humans are Neanderthal/Sapiens Sapiens hybrids (heavily favoring the latter), I would define us as sub-species rather then Great Apes that look a lot alike.

myp · Nov 18, 2012

David said:
When dealing with related species, I define the difference at whether or not 2 populations can reliably breed viable offspring. Thus a house cat and African Lion are different species while a dog and Gray Wolf are simply variants of the same species. As 75% of modern Humans are Neanderthal/Sapiens Sapiens hybrids (heavily favoring the latter), I would define us as sub-species rather then Great Apes that look a lot alike.

It is arguable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal#Classification

Where are you getting that 75% figure from though? Doesn't seem right. There is even doubt that Netherlands and Sapiens interbreeded to produce fertile offspring: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/aug/14/study-doubt-human-neanderthal-interbreeding