Discoveries of advanced pre-flood civiliztions

I judge measurement in grains is unlikely to pre-date fairly widespread gold use, which is perhaps c. 5th millennium BC?

I suspect the Babylonian Mina (of c. 500g = 10,800 grains) is much older, representing a man-day food ration. As old as the start of organised grain collection/production, so perhaps c. 9th millennium BC?

Linked to that, I would make open ended "ladder" counting systems start about that time, linked specifically to annual grain harvest assessment and storage. If so, stress on the the base 60 version of the Babylonian counting system slightly misses the point. It is the 360 basis that is really fundamental - based upon a 360 day year

Rob T

PS You can try this at home. Make a cup out of both your hands and scoop a heap of wheat. Perhaps it will weight c. 250g?

 

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I am always curious: why must our thinking start at that point? I am sure Hominids were collecting grains, in grain fields, WELL before they began to seed and plant them.
I have noticed thinking always starts as when we Modern Hominids point to organized farming. There were probably huge spans of history, where we performed many tasks that we performed everyday. I cannot believe that mankind just leapt into intelligence 10,000 years ago. I believe we had the same brains and intelligence since the dawn of our species. And, that many other Hominid species were as intelligent or more intelligent than ours.

Just curious what all.these same intelligence (as today’s) brains DID for those several hundreds of thousands of years?

As a thought: perhaps the Mina is much older. Just because we RECORDED history, does not mean that is when it first started. Perhaps the Mina is hundreds of thousands of years old, and was oral history. Isn’t the Mina a two hands holding of food?

 

You seem to be asking about a point you imagine I made, rather than the one I did make, which was primarily about ladder counting

You are free to believe whatever you want, of course. I just checked and the earliest grain storage seems to be around 11,000 BC. Unless you were specialist farmers engaged in storing food for a group of people for a full year I see no need for hard sums. Physical weights predate text but not by a lot, they are hard to find before 3,000 BC. So on the evidence, maybe 11,000 BC or there abouts, for earliest ladder counting.

I do not think all this nonsense on TV about Aliens is much about the past at all really. Its more an effort to undermine evidence based thinking today, in the 21st century. As the facts I posted earlier rather emphasise. I fear its working.

Rob T

 

Rob:
Please do not misunderstand my musings. I really value your posts, and enjoy the knowledge you put out there.

Your comments caused me to think a little out of the box. I have never believed in "aliens". I read "Chariots of the Gods", then immediately read "Crash Go the Chariots". It is amazing how folks can just "write down information", then influence whole trains of thought or whole populations to their thinking.

Rather, I believe Humans are an intelligent species, and were intelligent WELL before we recorded History. I was speculating on how far back we were doing things, PRIOR to our RECORDING them.

Let me digress:
I always play with the thought that Humans have this need to think that, just because it is written down, that it is or may be fact. I was impressed when I was much younger with Yul Brenner stating "So it shall be written, so it shall be done!" in the epic film "The Ten Commandments". My question when Brenner said that: "was it the RIGHT thing to do?" Or, was it the CORRECT information that was written down? If only 1%-5% of a populating was literate during much of Ancient times, that is an ENORMOUS amount of power to such a few people. They could mold, shape, or command that information to suit their needs, even invoke divinity to those Written Words. So, was our our History correct during those early times ?

No, I absolutely do not believe in Aliens. If they were here, they would far exceed our abilities, similarly as compared to Humans to Ants...we would just be unconsciously stamped out like bugs under our feet. However, I DO see that Humans, given the power over information, can always influence populations to suit their needs.

Humans

 

Thanks for the thoughts @Alegandron.

Sure - Early hominids had big brains for thinking with, so would be intelligent in their own way. Seems that Homo Erectus could light a fire using sticks or stones, and I have doubts I could.

But a lot of the surviving hunter gatherer types did not seem to vocalise numbers beyond two or three. I do not take a hard line on that, so would be pretty sure they could do better mentally – but all the same, its hard to see how any but the rare genius would have got very far with maths with that sort of vocalised start line.

You ask “So, was our our History correct during those early times?” and my immediate thought is – well - much of it is not even correct for today. “History is a set of lies agreed upon” etc etc

Concerning past intelligence, I find Herodotus an interesting read on that. He seems to have one foot in the modern world, but the other in a pre-historic one. We owe him a lot for preserving those old tales. It seems to me like maybe those late pre-historic Greeks spoke to each other in something like oblique riddles. If so they were maybe more intelligent than us, in their own way.

But to be honest my interest in this thread is mostly to do with the forces I see acting in the present, rather than the past. Contact me off group and I would be more frank on that matter – caveat emptor.

Rob T

 

Gauging intelligence of proto-humans is difficult. Even Neanderthals (who had bigger brains than modern man) had their burial rituals and probably some sort of religion. Contemplating a reality outside of human daily routine (hunting, gathering, eating, sleeping) required some kind of genesis in the brain.

 

Or, it could be they were so disgusted watching a corpse being ravaged by scavengers that they decided it was better to put their dead underground where they couldn't be bothered.

Simple enough and no need to invoke a religious reason for it.

 

Just a casual observation: I think “Necessity is the mother of invention” was at work with early humans and is obviously still at work today. Early humans COULD have invented counting systems, etc., long before they did but they didn’t need to.

Steve

 

Ha! Just what I almost wrote myself

 

The Society for American Archaeology's November 2019 Journal about pseudoarchaeology is free for public viewing to help combat the same nonsensical 'theories' that have been propagated in this thread.

Enjoy the truth bomb!

http://onlinedigeditions.com/publication/?m=&l=1&i=634462&p=0

 

I am afraid this seems like a stunt to me. There is, always have been, and always will be a lot of credulous people around. For professional archaeologists to get all excited about that amid claims of having “the truth” tends to distract attention from serious questions about whether archaeologists in general do have special knowledge of “the truth”. In my experience specious claims abound in the modern archaeological community.

Who to fear? The witches or the witch hunters? Best to keep an eye on both of them in my opinion.

Rob T

 

It's not a stunt. It's an attempt to provide people genuinely curious about our historical past with good information not junk theories.

Much scholarly research is hidden away in academic journals and behind paywalls, this is an attempt to balance the scales against all the rubbish pseudoarchaeology that is freely available. No more, no less.

 

Rob, you seem to have a special animus against academics because some of them have ticked you off one time too many. But for any non-expert, an academic consensus is the very best opinion we've got, even though it will (of course) sometimes be wrong. I would argue that even an expert should be awfully careful to assert that any academic consensus is incorrect. Prefacing it with an "I may be wrong, but here is how it seems to me..." would seem appropriate.

So academic archaeologists don't, of course, have "special knowledge of the truth" but we should give their opinion – when it's a consensus opinion, or close to it – a heck of a lot of weight!

 

Interesting. I think you should be awarded a Doctorate in Armchair Psychology.

Good to see you disagree with David on the “truth” matter, but for myself, I have an old fashioned idea that I should try to weight the truth for myself, according to the pertinent facts, and not be led by the nose by any “consensus opinion”.

Rob T

 

Actually, I quite agree with SA's opinion:

Archaeology is a continually evolving science, I never have stated anything to the contrary. BTW, 'truth bomb' was meant metaphorically (I can't believe I have to explain that!).

Your suspicious attitude towards modern evidence based scholarship is quite curious.

 

That's a strange use of the word "metaphorically". Looks like “hyperbole” to me. However, I am pleased to get the retraction.

That is incorrect. I have not shown any suspicious attitudes towards any form of competent evidence based scholarship.

However, belittling critics by the manufacturing of ‘evidence’ is regrettably common in modern professional academia, in my experience. A pity that you picked up the habit.

The document you cited from SAA seems to me overly interested in modern political hot topics, at the expense of a wholistic approach to scholarship

Rob T

 

This is a major problem because bad information is available on the internet for free. It is much easier to obtain incorrect / outdated information, then good information, therefore much of the good work of academics is lost. This is not so much because it is no longer available, but mainly because academic research is overshadowed by incorrect free information.

I think this should change. The only way to do this is to cancel the payment wall. I realize that this is difficult, partly because governments have become increasingly reluctant to finance. However, it is very relevant that the general public also has good information, as it ensures that information is widely accepted.

The general public is not always reached by books or publications but much more often by "historical" films. Many viewers believe that everything shown in these films really happened. It is therefore important that the information shown in films is broadly correct. Of course there may be some free choice in the script, but the main lines must be correct.

A problem that often arises in films and on the internet, for example, is the conflicts between Greeks and Persians. These films often claim that the Greeks stood for freedom and the Persians for oppression. This is historically incorrect. With regard to laws on, for example, women's rights and justice, we will be more in favor of the laws of the Persians than of the Greeks. The laws that applied to women in Greece preceded Sharia. For women in ancient Greece, only the half of her testimony in a court case counted. Women also had to cover themselves outdoors.

It is not easy to find things like this on the internet. If you read about ancient Greece on the Internet, you will almost only find information about Greek democracy. It is often not mentioned that this form of democracy was not the same as we know it today.

Finally, better information about ancient and prehistoric times is available to those with genuine interest. But not for people who rely solely on Google search results. In fact, it would be best if good information became free so that insane theories like some in this thread no longer circulate.

 

Precisely! One of the authors in the SAA journal (Jeb Card) cited this as the primary reason why that edition was freely offered to the public.

The Discovery Channel and the History Channel have a lot to answer for!

 

Delighted you make that point. As I recall the only political statement we have from Darius himself is translated as “I will protect the weak from the strong from the strong from the weak” which seems to make him a proponent of justice for all. And Greek sources scoff at him for encouraging market freedom – calling him a “shopkeeper” (brings to mind comments from Napoleon). And was it not a Greek democrat, an opponent of Spartan Greek authoritarianism, who piloted invading Persian forces ashore at one point?

However, I am less sure that what we find behind paywalls is quite as wholesome as you wish to think.

Academia itself waged a kind of war on objectivity back in the 1970’s. For instance Feyerabend, with Professorships at Berkeley, Yale, LSE and a bunch of other places, promoted the idea that the novels of Carlos Castaneda were legitimate contributions to scholarship! Where are the academics pointing that out? In the 1980’s Archaeology followed up with a political coup against the old guard of objective scholars (1986 World Archaeology, Southampton meet as I recall). I can gladly explain intellectual disasters that has led to.

So its been a kind of double whammy. Hippy Professional scholarship attacked independently minded objectivity back through the 1960's to 1980’s - and now steps up to offer its own, often inferior, post-modern virtue signalling replacement.

No, thanks.

To go further, we would have to get into nitty gritty details. That SAA document offers amusing possibilities on that score.

Rob T

 

Another great resource is the Pseudoarchaeology Research Archive (PARA). http://pseudoarchaeology.org/index.html

And a great podcast with such topics. https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-archaeological-fantasies-podcast

A relevant episode. https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-archaeological-fantasies-podcast/e/54501139?autoplay=true

One doesn't have to throw up one's hands in despair and say 'aliens!', the information is out there.