Archaeological findings show that primitive tribes lived along the Nile long before the dynastic history of the Pharaohs began. By about 5500 BC... What would become the Maya region had been inhabited since at least the 10th millennium BC. [one presumes they had a culture-sg] Peru has been inhabited since 20 000 years ago by hunters and collectors, according to some lithic rests found in the caves of Piquimachay (Ayacucho), Chivateros, Lauricocha, Paijan, and Toquepala. The oldest primitive cultures appeared in 6000 BC... Stone age rock shelters with paintings at Bhimbetka in Madhya Pradesh are the earliest known traces of human life in India. The first known permanent settlements appeared over 9,000 years ago, and gradually developed into the Indus Valley Civilization, dating back to 5000 BCE in western India. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 – 5,500 years. So written evidence of cultures only go back about that far. Archeological evidence exists for far older peoples.
So the Mayans have an earlier history than the Egyptians? Yes the span of history (5,000 years range) corresponds with Biblical creationism (albeit Biblicaly it is 5,000 plus INCLUDING the last 2,000 years of the Christian calendar.).
Most civilizations arose about the same time. It depends what you want to call a distinct culture. There have been migrations of humans around the world for tens of thousands of years, and culture is a human trait.
right, I was wondering of any 'leftovers' from those cultures as we know of, or if we can point of ANY detail of it, if not we will just to have to rely on the logic --not rejected by me-- you presented that 'humans have culture'.
The oldest leftovers are stone tools, cave paintings, and the occasional artifact like a bone flute. Prehistory I: Oldest sign artifacts. "The oldest human sign artifacts, consisting of engraved animal bones such as the Bordes ox-rib, date to perhaps 300,000 B.P. [before present] from the pre-Neanderthal period in France... The stone tools and spear points are especially good signs of culture, since their design was a highly developed technology that was passed through the culture.
Yes, the first examples were crude, but eventually turned into this: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
You are correct. Ur and Uruk both pre-date Egypt. Wadi Kubbaniyah is an interesting place to study, if you have the time.
There were Egyptians present in the neolithic. Just as there were Mesopotamians and Levantians. Ur and Uruk were Sumerian, though there were cultures at both sites that exhibit pre-Sumerian characteristics (before 3270 BCE). This is the point where the Late Pre-Dynastic was present in Egypt and the first hieroglyphs were being made. The Nabta Playa region in Egypt was populated as far back as 6000-4000 BCE and other neolithic sites are present as well. In the Levant, the Natufians were present beyond 7000 BCE and they're among the very first to develop agriculture.
What do you say to the supposition of some that there were developed settlements at Wadi Kubbaniyah as much as 17,000 years ago?
I say, "what's the archaeological evidence to support that assertion." If it's sound, I'd support it. But since 17,000 years ago occurred just after the last glacial maximum; and since there are few reasons to believe that external pressures existed to force sedantism; and since sedentary life ways necessarily require some form of food production; and since domestication of plants and animals hadn't yet occurred -I'd say its unlikely. But what's the evidence?
Mostly evidence that nut grass was being actively cultivated along the banks of the river, some fish bones, and trace evidence of houses. I don't know that that, in and of itself, is enough to call it "settlement". They may have been seasonal nomads. However, I think it's fascinating to imagine that the same people may have returned to that same area season after season, to build shelters, fish and cultivate, 10,000 years before the pharaohs.
I think all of these things are very likely in many places where humans lived. Indeed, there are similar sites of neanderthal and archaic human habitation, such as Shanidar. There are many settlements that have been identified that much older than many might expect. Certainly long before the rise of complexity in Egypt and Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. I remember reading a journal article that detailed the excavation of a neanderthal site in Germany where houses were being excavated -probably thatch houses, but there were distinctive floors at a level that would have belonged only to the neanderthal period prior to 25,000 years ago. In the Ukraine, mammoth bone houses have been discovered that date back to 19,000 years ago.
What do you think about the notion that some are putting forth, that Clovis Man was not the earliest man in North America? Aren't there some digs in Central America where the scientists are now claiming that they have evidence of settlement that might date back to pre-Clovis man ages? I thought I remembered a NG article a while back that detailed a dig where they thought they were looking a settlement as much as 15,000 years old. From what I remember, wouldn't that pre-date Clovis man by around 5,000 years?
Until recently, the first wave of migration from Siberia to North America was pegged at roughly 15,000BCE. That is consistent with the date of this "settlement" in Central America. You have to be careful that you don't use the word "settlement" to mean "camp." As someone pointed out, agriculture and/or animal husbandry--the cultivation of a bountiful and stationary food supply--both requires and makes possible the building of permanent settlements. I'm not aware of any evidence of that in the Americas until somewhere around 6,000 or 5,000BCE, although it occurred in Mesopotamia around 10,000BCE. And both agriculture and animal husbandry leave rich archeological evidence that's hard to miss, if only the gigantic trash heaps that are an archeologist's dream. Any "houses" built before that Paradigm Shift were lodgings, elaborate encampments that nomadic hunter-gatherers returned to every year at one end or the other of their cycle. The idea of a "lost civilization" of any magnitude is extraordinary. Civilization inevitably spreads even if it ultimately dies out. If nothing else, the surrounding Neolithic tribes learn, barter or steal a great deal of the technology and they end up leaving archeological evidence of their own in an arc surrounding the city. Mesopotamia is the oldest civilization, which literally means cities: settlements so large that for the first time in history people had to learn to live harmoniously and cooperatively with strangers, i.e., another Paradigm Shift. Jericho, built around 8,000BCE, has long been called the first city, but people on SciForums have told me about other cities in the region that are a bit older. Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa for the first time, at least the first time successfully, around 70,000BCE. Recent linguistic research suggests that language may have been invented in Africa about that time, and may have been the key technology that made possible the planning and communication necessary to survive in a new environment. Whether that is true, 70,000 years is a long time for humans to move around and cross each other's tracks. Modern humans (sapiens) have lived in Asia for tens of thousands of years and it's impossible to trace their migrations. Sapiens have been in Europe for only about one third as long, yet it's still impossible to identify the ethnic groups who lived there before the Indo-Europeans began arriving around 3500BCE, except for a few fragments like the Etruscans and the Basques. Sapiens have been in the Western Hemisphere in large numbers for only around 15,000 years and we actually have some fair taxonomy for the three waves that gave rise to three groups of related tribes. Malayo-Polynesia and the Pacific Islands were uninhabited when Egypt was built, whereas the Native Australians go very far back into the mists of time. The Classic Egyptians were a Cushitic people, related to modern Ethiopians. There is considerable debate over their origin, although the Cushitic language family is linked closely to the people of Asia Minor, not sub-Saharan Africa. I've seen no conclusive analysis of the ethnicity of the people who lived in Egypt before their arrival.
