[Fifth Business]

There's not enough information here to understand his claim. The article mentions artifacts "more than 4,000 years" old, but he will need to date any tablets with writing on them more than 5,000 years old for his site to be "the earliest [literate] Oriental civilization."

[Fedora]

There's not enough information here to understand his claim. The article mentions artifacts "more than 4,000 years" old, but he will need to date any tablets with writing on them more than 5,000 years old for his site to be "the earliest [literate] Oriental civilization."

Agree. I don't know whether that's a reflection on the scholar or just on the article's news reporting. I'd like to see more about the find--sounds interesting in any case.