The Ice Age and the Fertile Crescent.

[FrostyBoy]

I've been doing a lot of study on these two things over the past month. (Not because of the Day After Tomorrow movie of course).

I'm very interested in where Civilization started.

I don't want to rule out God or Evolution in doing so.

So far I have come up with these ideas:

1. God created everything, but the actual creation process is the same as the way scientists have discovered it to be.

2. The {Last} Ice Age comes, and the humans survive through it for 90,000? years. These 90,000 years include the slow graduation of the Earth cooling, then to mid Ice Age, where Ice covers most of the planet, freezing oceans and creating ice blankets 2 miles thick, etc.

3. As the humans (Homo-Sapiens?) walk around looking for better land and more importantly - food, eventually, after thousands of years some find the Fertile Crescent.
The Fertile Crescent I am talking about is the area around the Gulf. Here is where the humans settle, here is where they first learn to grow their own food (agriculture).

4. The ice starts to melt extremely and floods occur (The Great Flood?). When the water has returned to the ocean, the ocean has risen and much of the previous coast is now under water, including some of the Fertile Crescent (the mouth to the ocean of the Eurphrates and the Tigris rivers are said to be the major part of the Fertile Crescent (The Garden of Eden).

5. Anyway, agriculture lead to more people and time, more people and time lead to other ideas, leading to religion, writing, and so on, and so the birth of Civilization begins.

[Kuciwalker]

Re: The Ice Age and the Fertile Crescent.

Originally posted by Sn00py
I've been doing a lot of study on these two things over the past month. (Not because of the Day After Tomorrow movie of course).

I'm very interested in where Civilization started.

I don't want to rule out God or Evolution in doing so.

First problem right there.

[FrostyBoy]

The Bible can be useful because it is a record of things that might have happened. The bible does accurately name the rivers and the Fertile Crescent.

[Kuciwalker]

So does your average atlas. The OT is sort of like the Iliad for the Israelites. When studying the history of ancient Greece, would you not leave their gods out as a possibility?

[Hueij]

The Fertile Crescent I am talking about is the area around the Gulf. Here is where the humans settle, here is where they first learn to grow their own food (agriculture).

Where's China, where's India?

[FrostyBoy]

I dunno Hueij, tell me, that's why I started the thread!

[Kuciwalker]

Read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.

[Hueij]

Originally posted by Sn00py
I dunno Hueij, tell me, that's why I started the thread!

But you make it sound as if civilisation started in the ME when it actually started all over the place. And what is the definition of the start of civilisation anyway? The start of agriculture? Cities? Writing?

There is proof that Neanderthal man buried their dead with certain rituals. Is that a sign of civilisation?

[The Viceroy]

I think he's talking about Civilization in the modern context .. (ie .. the start of city building .. as in our much beloved Civilization), although I do agree, its not as straight forward as that by a long shot.

Where did it all begin ?? good question. I think some of the evidence coming out of India over the last few decades is a good indicator to this. There have been many cities discovered under the water, miles out to sea, and no record of these places ever existing (although some do claim it to be cities from religious texts .. difficult to prove that though).

This leads me to believe that much of Humanities early settlements were along the coast, but since the sea has risen, and engulfed many of them, leaving us with a map rather different from the one that was once there.

If you use the bible as a guide, (and forgive my poor memory of the Genisis account), but didn't Cain run off to a city (or found one) after killing Abel .. and these were the first born of Adam and Eve, which leads me to deduce that people were already living in cities (or at least the concept of a city existed at this point) .. seems odd that a city would come into it when there were only a few people about.

I actually think, the garden of eden is probably sitting under a few hundred foot of water, somewhere in the middle east.. but thats not necasarily the birth place of man kind .. but the birth place of the biblical story.

[Hueij]

Don't take the Bible too literally... Genesis is just the Christian/Judean version of a perfect world that is lost to us forever. Every religion has its own version.

[The Viceroy]

That in itself is a whole can of worms !! .. I think from what I can remember, the oldest city currently was in South America .

[Hueij]

South-America? Do you have any links?

This leads me to believe that much of Humanities early settlements were along the coast, but since the sea has risen, and engulfed many of them, leaving us with a map rather different from the one that was once there.

I think the early settlements were mostly established along river banks, the Nile valley/delta, Euphrate/Tigris etc. that's also the reason I find it hard to believe that the oldest city was located in South-America. The Amazon is not the easiest river to found a city alongside...

[Boris Godunov]

The last ice age ended c. 10,000 years ago, and homo sapiens already populated most of the globe by then, having spread to Australia and North and South America.

Civilization may have begun first in the Indus valley, of the most recent archaeological finds off the west coast of India are correct.

[Locutus]

You're looking at the wrong side of the Andes, Hueij...

Caral, Peru is the location of the oldest known city in the New World, which goes back to some 3,000-2,500 BC. It's not the oldest city in the entire world though, but it certainly supports the idea that civilization started independently in numerous different places.

[CharlesBHoff]

They date the Great Sph in Egpty back to 13000 year ago as the Egptian never claim to built but to found it bury under sand. Part of Stonehedge in England is now being dated back also about 13000 year ago.