----- Original Message -----
From: "Darryl Shannon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2000 10:49 AM
Subject: Ancient Civilizations
> Peter speculated that the centers of very ancient civilizations could
> be in places that are now covered with water. But let's examine those
> places. Beringia, between Alaska and Siberia. Not a good place to
> found a civilization. The straights between Australia and New Guinea.
> Well, Australia is known for it's low level of technology, due to it's
> isolation and poor resources. It seems very unlikely that it was the
> seat of some vanished civilization when there are no archeological
> sites with anything other than stone tools in the rest of Australia/New
> Guinea. Land bridge between Britain and France...well, it's very
> small. I think Corsica and Sardinia were joined...perhaps some areas
> under the Caspian were dry, but my understanding is that it was more
> the reverse...the Caspian used to be much bigger.
>
> The point is that these land bridges were not the best places for
> civilizations to develop, and they were not large areas anyway compared
> to the continents, and there is no reason for us to believe that the
> ancient civilization for some reason confined themselves to coastal
> lowlands. A civilization that could go to Mars would have to be at
> least continental in scope, not a single city or two huddled on a land
> bridge.
Civilisation tends to develop around waterways, coastal areas and rivers.
There has been quite a bit in the news over the last few years about ruins
just off the coast of places like Egypt and Japan. It isnt impossible or
improbable that there could be cities under the sea, just out of our sight.
Im sure you are aware that the age of the Sphynx is under assault. And the
arguments are pretty interesting and self consistant, true or not. The
timeline for the first Americans looks to be modified somewhat radically.
>
> Anyway, I think the idea of ancient civilizations comes from our modern
> ideas of progess. We just can't imagine generation upon generation of
> hunter-gatherers doing things pretty much the same way. I mean, there
> are lots and lots of obvious technologies out there, it boggles the
> mind that these guys can't come up with them. So we have Ayla from
> Clan of the Cave Bear domesticating horses, inventing needles, pyrite,
> pottery...etc etc. But we know that it doesn't happen that way.
> Neandertals used essentially the exact same technique for making
> spearpoints for tens of thousands of years, with no variation.
>
> But we EXPECT progress, we expect any given caveman to figure out how
> to domesticate the dog and smelt bronze on his own, because we see new
> technologies every day. But WE are the strange ones, not the
> Cro-magnon. Once population density falls below a certain point,
> technology cannot even be maintained, let alone advanced. Techniques
> for something as simple as a bow and arrow become lost without contact.
>
I agree with you here. I suggest that civilisation may have been around 10K
longer than we are taught. But none of these proposed civilisations was as
advanced as say Egypt.
xponent
rob
