Is Civilization Older Than We Think?

[Jerrel]

Just watching that History Channel special with Captain Archer hosting it. It talked about Atlantis and the possibility that humanity is much older than science thinks. I thought this might be a nice topic that we can discusse and wanted to see what you people think.

Personally I think we are. There are some facts out there that points to prehistoric civilizations on the level of the Romans or at the very least the Aztec. There is a large collections of square stones on top of one another off the cost of Asia. These stones look like a large stone structure. Another exaple is the "Stone Road" in the Carrabean. Both sights where above water durring the last major Ice Age. Then there is the Sphinxe (sp?). A close up picture of erroded stone on the Sphinxe's body was taken and shown to several geologist who specialize in errosian analasist. They where told nothing of the picture except the type of stone. All of them came back and said that the errosion was caused by heavy rain storms over long periods of time. Last time there area experienced that much rain fall was well before the last Ice Age.

Many archeologist dissmised these findings and insist that civilization is no older than the Byzatine(sp?) Empire (3000 BC). The fact that they seem so certain in this assuption makes me feel that there is something to this. Have they escavated the entire world? To say for certainty that civilization is so old is to close the possibility and then we fall into the pit trap that befell those who felt the Earth was flat and that the sun circiled the Earth. I feel it is very possible that there is a lot of lost civilizations out there and if the scientific community refuses to acept that it is possible we will never know.

[Jabe Adaks]

Captain Archer might know starfleet captains go back in time quite a bit!!

Jabe

[X'an Shin]

There are some facts out there that points to prehistoric civilizations on the level of the Romans or at the very least the Aztec. There is a large collections of square stones on top of one another off the cost of Asia. These stones look like a large stone structure.

A stone fence =/= laws, a governing body representative of the people (democracy or republic), or a culture rich with arts, a farming infrastructure, etc.

A close up picture of erroded stone on the Sphinxe's body was taken and shown to several geologist who specialize in errosian analasist. They where told nothing of the picture except the type of stone. All of them came back and said that the errosion was caused by heavy rain storms over long periods of time.

I'm sure that rainstorm erosion looks NOTHING like sandstorm erosion (hi, sarcasm here). Fact of the matter is we know who built the Sphinx. The Egyptians didn't have heavy rains. It's why Egypt is built on a river that was guaranteed to flood once a year when the rains did come and deposit enough silt on the riverbanks for them to farm with. This is the problem with not telling an erosion analyst what region the sample came from.

To say for certainty that civilization is so old is to close the possibility and then we fall into the pit trap that befell those who felt the Earth was flat and that the sun circiled the Earth. I feel it is very possible that there is a lot of lost civilizations out there and if the scientific community refuses to acept that it is possible we will never know.

In the 70's Pompei was discovered (I'm pretty sure it was the 70's), but that wasn't any new civ. It was pretty much a Roman city that got buried by a volcano. Not a lot new to find there. Then recently we've discovered some wacked out tribal civs on islands around the Pacific rim, but really, they don't pre-date known history, either.

The idea that there could be an Atlantis out there is pure speculation at this point. Historians all disagree on where it might be located, and even when they do agree, teams are sent out to excavate the ocean floor and nothing is ever found (Most recently at the mouth of the Mediterranean off the coast of Portugal). I think it's pretty safe to say that everything significant that could be found has been found, and any other civs we find now are just gravy, or are just lost cities that fit inbetween existing civs. If there are any civs that pre-date known history, they would have to be some sort of alien civ that died out before we showed up, since they would have to have been more technologically advanced than recorded history. This very concept goes against everything science has learned about civilizations and the natural progressions therein.

So, my answer is no, it's not older than we think.

[Yala]

Its my belief that science has many things pinpointed quite well and that as new technologies become available, they make corrections now and then and lets face it, nobody can be 100% certain about anything, we'll always be dealing in high or low possibilities. We might even have missed a great civilization of ancient times but do I think we had advanced Atlantians and the like, as Jerrel speculates? No, there may have been an Atlantis but I don't think they were especially advanced anymore than tha Greeks were to the Northern Europeans in ancient times. Which was a significant difference, science suggests. Would my imagination and dreams like to imagine it possible? Certainly. We humans are very good at dreaming and imagining things of fantasy and adventure
That isn't to say I wouldn't love new discoveries that reveal more to us

[warsloth]

I think scientists have a lot of their stuff wrong.

The sphinx still stands, where as the Tower of Babel is a hill of mud.

Dinosaurs... I think they have no clue what timeframe(s) they existed in.

Mankind? I don't think they have a clue about that one either.

The Earth itself, well... I wont get into it, but I believe it's a LOT younger than they think.

[MrDooo]

I remember a History Channel show from a few years back about the erosion of the Sphinx. Along with that, two more concepts that support an older civ than the Egyptians: The Sphinx's head had been changed - it used to be a lion. The Great Pyramids have holes in em that line up with the stars EXACTLY...from where the stars were 10,000 years ago.

I don't remember all the details, but the arguments were pretty convincing to me at the time.

[Dwilah]

I marvel at what mankind has accomplished over the lifetimes of its children. I don't know that I need quantifiable dates to be impressed, awed, or satisfied--I was recently reminded at how much we have changed only recently when I was reminded that the year Queen Victoria died (who saw the stretch of railroads across England), Walt Disney was born. Whether it is burial mounds, arrowheads, great palaces, great statues or rusted tracks, there are many humbling reminders over the world of the many things humanity has done in a great, expansive past.

[xyryn]

The Byzantine times were post Roman...not that old. Look at Ur and Sumer for old. Also, check out Jericho.

The Egyptian chronology is pretty well worked out. Approximately 10k years ago, the Sahara was a veldt changing to desert. It was still getting rains. As it dried up, the peoples living there migrated to the Mediterranean Littoral and the Nile Valley.

There are concrete slabs on some of the bends of the Rhine. They are dated to about 5k years ago. Interesting.

[Sai'nu]

I like to leave a little room for error. So, I'm not really sure. Science was absolutely sure that Neanderthals (sp?) did not exist during the same timeframe as modern man; Leaving some big mystery as to when they died out and we immerged.

Now, recent findings suggest that there may have been a time when we shared some of our history with them. A set of modern tools (We're not talking power tools here) were wedged in with some Neanderthal tools. Given the location it was suggested that our more hearty conditioning survived a climate change that the Neanderthals weren't ready for.

Now... getting bizzaro about 'aliens built the pyramids'; I'm sorry, no, not possible and we have the evidence we need to prove it.

Lost Civilizations, while not a myth, probably have to fit within our 'History of Man' time period. We may just need to correct little discrepancies in our findings from time to time is all.

You know, like when we find Ceasar's DvD collection

[Ekade]

Science is constantly changing it's mind, as it should, especially when it comes to history.

The key phrase is "science thinks that...". They are taking some information, and making some assumptions, and coming up with what they feel is a good guess.

Just understand that when you hear "scientists believe...", what you are getting is a guess.

Over time, these guesses are proven wrong and new ones are made.

[warsloth]

Might these neanderthals have been considered giants?

Scienctists have claimed that they can create amino acids, similar to what the first semblance of life sprang from. In a controlled situation, in which they create an environment and concoction of elements that would have never existed, they can make amino acids. But even having done this, there has been no success at creating life from them.

Without radio-carbon dating, a lot of the prehistoric timelines have zero credibility. Radio carbon dating has been disproved several times, showing that it cant be trusted.

[Isleh]

Might these neanderthals have been considered giants?

Scienctists have claimed that they can create amino acids, similar to what the first semblance of life sprang from. In a controlled situation, in which they create an environment and concoction of elements that would have never existed, they can make amino acids. But even having done this, there has been no success at creating life from them.

Without radio-carbon dating, a lot of the prehistoric timelines have zero credibility. Radio carbon dating has been disproved several times, showing that it cant be trusted.

Proved by who and did they have an agenda?

[warsloth]

who doesn't have an agenda

[Jerrel]

Simple little fact is that rain errosion is diffrent from flood errosion so that assuption is off. I saw the same special Dooo did. In it I recall that many archeologist dismissed rain errosion by saying that it didn't rain when it was made so it couldn't be rain errosion and that geologist know nothing of archeology.

As for carbon dating I have some doughts about it. For give me if I'm a little off on this, essentailly carbon dating is the messurements of the radioactive decay of a certain carbon in either just rocks or all matter (can't remeber witch it is). The carbon decays at a rate of half every x years and hence will never vanish from rocks or all matter. For example rock a starts with 1000 units of the carbon. In 10000 years the units in the carbon decay to 500. 10000 years after, that the units of carbon has decayed to 250, and so on (note: the numbers used here are just for the example I'm unsure of the exact numbers but it is somewhare in the 10 thousand years range). The problem with this is that the decay rate is assumed. Carbon dating has only been in use for at least 50 years and the half life (the time it takes to reach half of what was there) of the carbon is much longer than that. So untill cabon dating has been in use long enough it is just a theoretical way of dating.

Here is something on Carbon Dating I was able to dig up that shows the point where carbon dating is considered less reliable by the scientific community.

From the pages of National Geographic December 2000 issue

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v699/ ... dating.jpg

[Ekade]

who doesn't have an agenda

/QFT