” is indeed the cradle of civilization, not the Middle East.”
The earliest pottery dates to 5500 BC while agriculture developed in the fertile crescent earlier.
Cities are also found in the fertile crescent, not the Danube region. It’s pretty clear that the “secret of civilization” in the region from Bengal to Ireland and from the Sahara to the arctic, originates in the triangle between eastern Turkey, northern Syria and Iraq.
But... but... we’re all from Africa...?????? (s)
Civilization antedates the Middle East; the traces have been found in now-submerged areas. Even if the Vinca symbols are writing, without a bilingual it’ll probably never be read. Same goes for the writing found among the cave paintings, and perhaps also the Indus Valley script.
Yeah, all the tepes are there in south eastern turkey. Goebekli Tepe being the most famous. They date from right after the end of the younger dryas. or about 9000 bc
“The earliest pottery dates to 5500 BC while agriculture developed in the fertile crescent earlier.”
Yes, which is why it’s a misleading argument to say the Danube writing was invented first. The early writing we have preserved from Mesopotamia is on fired clay tablets, and I believe most of them were not purposely fired, but only preserved because they were caught in a house fire or city that got burned down. So really they could have had writing much earlier, and just weren’t using a medium that could be preserved for thousands of years.