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Saudi Arabia discovers 9,000 year-old civilization
Reuters ^ | Wed Aug 24, 2011 | Asma Alsharif, edited by Angus MacSwan

Posted on 08/26/2011 3:24:20 PM PDT by SunkenCiv

Saudi Arabia is excavating a new archeological site that will show horses were domesticated 9,000 years ago in the Arabian peninsula, the country's antiquities expert said Wednesday.

The discovery of the civilization, named al-Maqar after the site's location, will challenge the theory that the domestication of animals took place 5,500 years ago in Central Asia, said Ali al-Ghabban, Vice-President of Antiquities and Museums at the Saudi Commission for Tourism & Antiquities.

"This discovery will change our knowledge concerning the domestication of horses and the evolution of culture in the late Neolithic period," Ghabban told a news conference in the Red Sea port of Jeddah.

"The Maqar Civilization is a very advanced civilization of the Neolithic period. This site shows us clearly, the roots of the domestication of horses 9,000 years ago."

The site also includes remains of mummified skeletons, arrowheads, scrapers, grain grinders, tools for spinning and weaving, and other tools that are evidence of a civilization that is skilled in handicrafts.

Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, is trying to diversify its economy away from oil and hopes to increase its tourism.

Last year the SCTA launched exhibitions in Barcelona's CaixaForum museum and Paris's Louvre museum showcasing historic findings of the Arabian Peninsula.

(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: almaqar; godsgravesglyphs; saudiarabia
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Credit: Reuters/SCTA

Saudi Arabia discovers 9,000 year-old civilization

1 posted on 08/26/2011 3:24:27 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
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To: SunkenCiv

Too bad not one has come to replace it since.


2 posted on 08/26/2011 3:27:39 PM PDT by VanDeKoik (1 million in stimulus dollars paid for this tagline!)
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To: SunkenCiv

picture from 9,000 yrs ago. and today.


3 posted on 08/26/2011 3:28:32 PM PDT by sappy
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To: SunkenCiv
Civilization and utilization of animals is very old. The Sauds like horses though, they will slant it. It was probably written as fact before the first shovel or brush touched the evidence.
4 posted on 08/26/2011 3:29:01 PM PDT by allmost
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To: SunkenCiv

Civilization and Arabia are incompatible terms.


5 posted on 08/26/2011 3:29:04 PM PDT by MIchaelTArchangel (Duval Patrick is a coward. Explain yourself on The O'Reilly Factor, you creep!)
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To: SunkenCiv

This is what Texas is going to look like very shortly if it doesn’t rain.


6 posted on 08/26/2011 3:30:29 PM PDT by squarebarb (ADE IN 1948.)
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To: allmost

there’s been a lot of new work calculating bit wear on the teeth of ancient horse skeletons, the one sure way to tell if they were domesticated or not.

I’d be interested to see if the skulls have bit wear. If not they were probably eating them. yum! Horse liver!


7 posted on 08/26/2011 3:32:01 PM PDT by squarebarb (ADE IN 1948.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Larry King’s hometown?


8 posted on 08/26/2011 3:32:22 PM PDT by ColdOne (I miss my poochie... Tasha 2000~3/14/11)
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To: Renfield; StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1010RD; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; ...

 GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach
Thanks Renfield.

I sense jokes are coming.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.


9 posted on 08/26/2011 3:32:37 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (It's never a bad time to FReep this link -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: SunkenCiv
"Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, is trying to diversify its economy away from oil and hopes to increase its tourism."

First thing they need to do is get rid of their repressive society.
10 posted on 08/26/2011 3:35:22 PM PDT by Sudetenland (There can be no freedom without God--What man gives, man can take away.)
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To: SunkenCiv

And it was more advanced than their own.


11 posted on 08/26/2011 3:36:07 PM PDT by BykrBayb (Somewhere, my flower is there. ~ Þ)
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To: squarebarb
I enjoy reading about history in most aspects, the clothing/fashion really should just stay away, the fact that this is Saudi approved makes me more skeptical than usual. If they approve I... fill in the blanks
12 posted on 08/26/2011 3:40:16 PM PDT by allmost
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To: Sudetenland

And religious police who punish all that is fun.


13 posted on 08/26/2011 3:40:43 PM PDT by tbw2
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To: Sudetenland

“First thing they need to do is get rid of their repressive society.”

That’s what I was thinking. No alcohol, having to dress all covered up so as not to offend anyone. I can’t imagine many American tourists wanting to go there. Certainly not me!


14 posted on 08/26/2011 3:40:43 PM PDT by Twotone (Marte Et Clypeo)
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To: SunkenCiv
Saudi Arabia discovers 9,000 year-old civilization

What's so earthshaking about that?

Most of us have been aware of it since the Islamofascists took over the U.N.

Just check out any of the 56 members of the Organization of the Islamic Council:

Sandmaggots United

Which, incidentally, some time in the last 6 months or so, changed its name to the gentler sounding Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

15 posted on 08/26/2011 3:46:52 PM PDT by Publius6961 (My world was lovely, until it was taken over by parasites.)
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To: SunkenCiv

They want to “increase tourism”?????

Of course, their biggest “tourist” attraction would be Mecca and Medina...and those cities are CLOSED to non-muslims.

and muslims HAVE to go there, at least once in their lifetime, even if they can’t afford it.

Great qualifications for a “vacation destination”.


16 posted on 08/26/2011 3:52:55 PM PDT by left that other site (Psalm 122:6)
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To: MIchaelTArchangel
Civilization and Arabia are incompatible terms.

Not if you're a muslim.
Not only do they believe that they are "civilized," but that they are intended to be the preeminent world civilization.

That might explain why no one ever heard of any worthwhile and useful contributions to civilization for 9000 years.

Until now.
I am underwhelmed.

17 posted on 08/26/2011 3:56:59 PM PDT by Publius6961 (My world was lovely, until it was taken over by parasites.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Evidence of modern human habitation of the Arabian peninsula dates back at least 100,000 years but recent analyses of Neolithic settlements along the coast of the Persian Gulf conclude that there was once a robust Neolithic culture which lived in the now-flooded lowlands around 9-11,000 years ago.

The Al Maqar culture would have been contemporary with the Persian Gulf culture and may even have enjoyed close ties with those communities. The Al-Maqar culture was sophisticated enough to have left behind “mummified skeletons, arrowheads, scrapers, grain grinders, tools for spinning and weaving, and other tools that are evidence of a civilization that is skilled in handicrafts.”

http://history.sf-fandom.com/2011/08/25/closing-in-on-the-archaeological-garden-of-eden/


18 posted on 08/26/2011 4:16:31 PM PDT by Fred Nerks (fair dinkum!)
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To: SunkenCiv

This picture is proof positive of one thing.

One out of eight Saudis are smart enough to stand in the shade of that scrawny tree in the desert.


19 posted on 08/26/2011 4:34:31 PM PDT by wildbill (You're just jealous because the Voices talk only to me.)
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To: SunkenCiv
In the last decade, archaeologists have identified over 60 settlements along the shores of the Persian Gulf, dating to about 7,500 years ago. The scattered camps of Neolithic hunter-gatherers were already known, but these were settlements, occupied by modern people who built permanent stone houses, made fine decorated pottery and sophisticated ‘pressure-flaked’ tools of flint, grew crops, domesticated animals, constructed sea-worthy boats and established long-distance trading networks.

Where did they come from? Such civilisations, if they were civilisations do not spring up overnight and Rose insubstantiality and conveniently claims that 'evidence' of preceding populations is missing because it is hidden beneath the Persian Gulf. He said, “These new colonists may have come from the heart of the Persian Gulf, displaced by rising water levels that plunged the once fertile landscape beneath the waters of the Indian Ocean.”

“It is no coincidence,” he went on, “that the founding of such remarkably well developed [pre-Arab] communities along the shoreline corresponds with the flooding of the Persian Gulf basin around 8,000 years ago.”

However, if such a 'Culture' or 'Civilisation' as Rose claims to exist beneath the waters of the Persian Gulf, they were perhaps the extended communities of the Zagros people rather than romanticised claim of East African origin.

source

20 posted on 08/26/2011 4:35:46 PM PDT by Fred Nerks (fair dinkum!)
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