Beyond Mesopotamia: A Radical New View Of Human Civilization Reported In Science

Eureka Alert ^ | 8-2-2007 | American Association For Advancement Of Science/Andrew Lawler

[blam]

Public release date: 2-Aug-2007
Contact: Natasha Pinol
npinol@aaas.org
202-326-7088
American Association for the Advancement of Science

Beyond Mesopotamia: A radical new view of human civilization reported in Science

Many urban centers crossed arc of Middle Asia 5,000 years ago

A radically expanded view of the origin of civilization, extending far beyond Mesopotamia, is reported by journalist Andrew Lawler in the 3 August issue of Science.

Mesopotamia is widely believed to be the cradle of civilization, but a growing body of evidence suggests that in addition to Mesopotamia, many civilized urban areas existed at the same time – about 5,000 years ago – in an arc that extended from Mesopotamia east for thousands of kilometers across to the areas of modern India and Pakistan, according to Lawler.

“While Mesopotamia is still the cradle of civilization in the sense that urban evolution began there,” Lawler said, “we now know that the area between Mesopotamia and India spawned a host of cities and cultures between 3000 B.C.E. and 2000 B.C.E.”

Evidence of shared trade, iconography and other culture from digs in remote areas across this arc were presented last month at a meeting in Ravenna, Italy of the International Association for the Study of Early Civilizations in the Middle Asian Intercultural Space. The meeting was the first time that many archaeologists from more than a dozen countries gathered to discuss the fresh finds that point to this new view of civilization’s start. Science’s Lawler was the only journalist present.

Archaeologists shared findings from dozens of urban centers of approximately the same age that existed between Mesopotamia and the Indus River valley in modern day India and Pakistan. The researchers are just starting to sketch out this new landscape, but it’s becoming clear that these centers traded goods and could have shared technology and architecture. Recovered artifacts such as beads, shells, vessels, seals and game boards show that a network linked these civilizations.

Researchers have also found hints, such as similar ceremonial platforms, that these cultures interacted and even learned from one another. A new excavation near Jiroft in southeastern Iran, for example, has unearthed tablets with an unknown writing system. This controversial find highlights the complexity of the cultures in an area long considered a backwater, Lawler explained.

These urban centers are away from the river valleys that archaeologists have traditionally focused on, according to Lawler. Archaeologists now have access to more remote locations and are expanding their studies.

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“Middle Asia Takes Center Stage,” by Andrew Lawler of Science’s news team. For copies of this article or to request an interview with Mr. Lawler, please contact Natasha Pinol at +1-202-326-7088 or npinol@aaas.org.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world’s largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal Science (www.sciencemag.org). AAAS was founded in 1848, and serves 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, reaching 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million. The nonprofit AAAS (www.aaas.org) is open to all and fulfills its mission to “advance science and serve society” through initiatives in science policy; international programs; science education; and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, www.eurekalert.org, the premier science-news Web site, a service of AAAS.

[muawiyah]

There are earlier serious stone works in Upper Egypt that date from the time when the Sahara was just finished with its conversion from grasslands to desert.

Giza didn't happen first ~ it happened "later" after a period of development. And yes, there is a "test pyramid" ~ check out "The Step Pyramid of Saqqara built for King Zoser". I believe a later, larger pyramid, was initially built at too steep an angle and started to collapse. They changed the angle on the upper portion.

[muawiyah]

They are talking about everything from the upper reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates in Anatolia all the way to the Mouth of the Indus, and that's a whale of a lot of territory, much of it desert.

Still, there are hundreds of millions of people living in the region.

[mutley]

There are earlier serious stone works in Upper Egypt that date from the time when the Sahara was just finished with its conversion from grasslands to desert. Giza didn't happen first ~ it happened "later" after a period of development. And yes, there is a "test pyramid" ~ check out "The Step Pyramid of Saqqara built for King Zoser". I believe a later, larger pyramid, was initially built at too steep an angle and started to collapse. They changed the angle on the upper portion.

Yes, that's the standard line. I just don't buy it. To me, it doesn't pass the common sense smell test.

[colorado tanker]

Thanks, blam. Good stuff.

[muawiyah]

The step pyramid is earlier than the material at Giza. The even more ancient stone buildings are clearly even more ancient than the step pyramid. We know when the Sahara dried up (literally just before writing was invented).

There are also large stone structures built in United Kingdom, Norway, and Spain that predate the Egyptian stone structures.

The engineering of stone structures is clearly something that developed in many cultures over many centuries.

[blam]

"Maybe they knew some little places to go to... Where they never closed... Downtown."

Petula is that you?

[mutley]

The engineering of stone structures is clearly something that developed in many cultures over many centuries.

Oh just stop it! Comparing stonehenge or the horse outline in a hillside, to Khufu's pyramid doesn't send up any red flags for you? And in Central America there are monuments/pyramids that at certain times of the year produce shadows of serpents on the step pyramid's descending/ascending step railings. Where are the predecessors of those?

[blam]

Voyages Of The Pyramid Builders

"The great pyramids of Egypt provide a wonderful glimpse of the artistry, skill and imagination of the ancient world. But pyramids can be found in India, China, Peru, Bolivia, Mexico and Ireland. In this provocative book, geologist Schoch (noted for his work in redating the Sphinx, which was recounted in his Voices of the Rocks) wonders how so many diverse cultures built such similar structures with similar purposes.

Using geological, linguistic and geographical evidence, he contends that a protocivilization of pyramid-building peoples was driven out of its homeland, the Sundaland, which geologists believe connected Southeast Asia with Indonesia, by a rise in sea level caused by comet activity between 6000 and 4000 B.C. Fleeing their homeland, these peoples took their knowledge of pyramid building with them into Sumeria, Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and Peru.

Schoch hypothesizes that the pyramids were built to reach into the skies and to penetrate the mystery of the heavens, source of catastrophe.
Schoch also asserts that the pyramids point to unity and symbolize the deep concerns shared by all humans. Schoch builds his engrossing case on geological details of the pyramid sites he has examined around the world. In the end, however, even he admits his evidence of a Sundaland protocivilization is speculative.

As controversial as this book is bound to be, Schoch's evocation of the pyramids forcefully reminds us of their enduring power as monuments to the spirit of human creativity."

There are presently more pyramids in Mexico that all the rest of the world combined.

[muawiyah]

The horse outline is relatively modern. Stonehenge is far older than ANYTHING in Egypt.

[muawiyah]

Regarding the fancy dan pyramids in the Americas, they have their predecssor developments only recently recognized. There are entire mud cities that folks thought were just piles of dirt.

BTW, the Chinese had ships with ocean going capability by about 1875 BC ~ and probably used them.

[RightWhale]

The Great Pyramid and Stonehenge were built by the same people. The Sphinx is much older but wasn’t so much built as hammered out of an outcrop. Anyway, none of this stuff is all that old. 30,000 BC is old.

[muawiyah]

BTW, one reason pyramids have a similar appearance and design is that unless you do it that way you end up with something other than a pyramid.

There's a maximum angle possible using limestone. When you exceed that angle you end up with a pile of rubble. The world is littered with piles of rubble.

[blam]

The pyramids at Caral, Peru are as old as or older than the pyramids in Egypt.

[muawiyah]

No doubt vast cities were build in Northern Europe circa 35000 years ago. They were then destroyed and ground to dust by a resurgence of the vast glaciation then dominating the Northern Hemisphere.

If we cared we could probably detect their former presence by evaluating the percentage of rubidnium present in the sand used to build the dykes in Nederland.

This will certainly happen to Chicago at some time in the next 35000 years. Archaeologists will then postulate a predecessor civilization that sent missionaries South to build the ruins of the complex on top the hills at New Orleans.

[mutley]

The horse outline is relatively modern. Stonehenge is far older than ANYTHING in Egypt.

Okay, assuming you are right. Where are the structures that bridge the gap between rough large stones balanced on one another, and the laser like precision of the grand gallery? My guess is that you will parry.

[RightWhale]

Very likely. Might be interesting although it wouldn’t have much value since the ownership records are also long gone. What is interesting is that the moose emigrated from Asia to Alaska at the same time as the migrating bands of hunters about 12,000 years ago. A wildlife biologist from Univ of Alaska just got an award for proving that.

[RightWhale]

What I am wondering is why we don’t hear much about the giant cog stones in the grand gallery.

[blam]

The Grand Gallery

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Is this another way of saying, what has been used for a very long time as the "fertile crescent"?

No, the 'Fertile Crescent' ran west from Mesopotamia through Syria and Israel to Eypt.

[SunkenCiv]

Rethinking a History That's Carved in Stone
by John Noble Wilford
July 31, 2001

Three months after the announcement of its discovery in Central Asia, a tiny stone object inscribed with symbols thought to be the writing of an obscure desert culture from 4,000 years ago is more of an enigma than ever. If this is indeed an early form of writing, as its discoverer has suggested, it is strong evidence for a previously unknown civilization that began about 2300 B.C. across much of modern Turkmenistan and parts of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan... An even more puzzling aspect of the discovery has been raised by specialists in ancient Chinese writing. They contend that the inscription bears more than a passing resemblance to Chinese writing -- not an early script, but one that was not used until about 200 B.C... There is no clear evidence for Chinese writing before about 1300 or 1200 B.C. -- 1,000 years after people lived at the Anau site in Turkmenistan where the mysterious inscription was unearthed... Another possibility, which would throw the scholarship of Chinese writing into turmoil, is that the 2300 inscription date is correct. That would suggest that influences from Central Asia or farther west might have contributed to the invention of Chinese writing. Dr. Mair, who holds that such influences were greater than previously thought, has raised this controversial point.

Another ancient civilization found
by Faye Flam
May 3, 2001 [no url]

"It's not ancient Iranian, not ancient Mesopotamian. I even took it to my Chinese colleagues," he said. "It was not Chinese." ...No one knows the extent of this civilization, which may reach beyond Margiana, deep in the Kara Kum desert, and Bactria, which straddles the Uzbek-Afghan border. Hiebert said he believes that a third area, Anau, outside Ashgabat near the Iranian border, is connected to this civilization, perhaps even the origin of the culture. It is about 2,000 years older, going back to 4500 BC, or the Copper Age.

Ancient writing found in Turkmenistan
Tuesday, 15 May, 2001, 05:57 GMT 06:57 UK

A previously unknown civilisation was using writing in Central Asia 4,000 years ago, hundreds of years before Chinese writing developed, archaeologists have discovered... The discovery suggests that Central Asia had a civilisation comparable with that of Mesopotamia and ancient Iran as far back as the Bronze Age, University of Pennsylvania archaeologist Fredrik Hiebert told the BBC... It is not known what the people of the civilisation called themselves, so researchers have dubbed the society the Bactria Margiana Archaeology Complex (B-Mac), after the ancient Greek names for the two regions it covers.

'Earliest writing' found in China
by Paul Rincon
'Earliest writing' found in China

Signs carved into 8,600-year-old tortoise shells found in China may be the earliest written words, say archaeologists... They predate the earliest recorded writings from Mesopotamia - in what is now Iraq - by more than 2,000 years. The archaeologists say they bear similarities to written characters used thousands of years later during the Shang dynasty, which lasted from 1700-1100 BC... The archaeologists have identified 11 separate symbols inscribed on the tortoise shells. The shells were found buried with human remains in 24 Neolithic graves unearthed at Jiahu in Henan province, western China. The site has been radiocarbon dated to between 6,600 and 6,200 BC. The research was carried out by Dr Garman Harbottle, of the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, US, and a team of archaeologists at the University of Science and Technology of China, in Anhui province... Dr Harbottle points to the persistence of sign use at different sites along the Yellow River throughout the Neolithic and up to the Shang period, when a complex writing system appears. He emphasised that he was not suggesting the Neolithic symbols had the same meanings as Shang characters they resembled... The shells come from graves where, in 1999, the researchers unearthed ancient bone flutes. These flutes are the earliest musical instruments known to date.

Tartaria tablets

One of the Tartaria tablets The three Tartaria tablets are believed by some to be a very early form of writing, over a thousand years older than the Sumerian and Egyptian writings. They were created around 4500 BC by the so-called Vinca culture and were mamed after Tartaria, Transylvania, Romania, where they were found.

The script combine pictograms with abstract symbols which some experts consider to be comparable in design to the early Sumerian writings, while others consider them to be simply random scribbles. Their meaning (if any) is unknown. If they do comprise a script, it is also not known what kind of writing system they represent.

---

These illustrations show (a) the collection of symbols that accompany the Magdalenian cave art in France, from 20,000 years ago or less, and characters in three of the early written languages which resemble the Paleolithic marks: (b) Indus Valley signs, India, (c) Greek (western branch), and (d) Runic (after Forbes and Crowder, 1979) -- From Plato Prehistorian by Mary Settegast. [after Forbes and Crowder, "The Problem of Franco-Cantabrian Abstract Signs: Agenda for a New Approach." World Archaeology 10 (1979): 350-66.]