From: L' Ermit (lhermit@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Jan 27 2002 - 20:00:42 MST
[Blunderov] Somebody posted an enquiry about a recent discovery of a
submerged city. I can't find the original post but here is what I found in
The Sunday Times (South Africa) today:
[Hermit] I do believe it was Roly Sookias.
[quote]
New City Limit
Archaeological finds in India indicate that cities may have emerged
thousands of years further back in history than was previously believed.
Objects found last year at a submerged city off Gujarat have been dated to
around 7500BC, reports New Scientist.
Prior to the discovery it was believed that the earliest cities had emerged
in Mesopotamia around 3000BC.
If validated the find would also push back India's oldest civilization by
5000 years
[/quote]
[Hermit] [i]Facts below largely a rearrangement of researched data from an
off-list letter I wrote in 1999.[/i]
[Hermit] I would suggest that this article makes a number of incorrect
assertions, and that its conclusions are seriously flawed. The oldest
(confirmed) "city building civilizations" are Black Sea and Indian based at
7500 BCE and Egyptian at 5000 BCE.
[Hermit] In particular, authors of recent studies on the so-called Indus
Valley (better identified as the Harappan) civilizations (in Scientific
American, National Geographic and Archeology Today - all in 1999), assert
that archeological evidence indicates that the civilization originated at
latest in the late 7,000s or early 6,000s BCE and continued until the
devastating 300 year drought period in about 2,200BCE ended it. These
scholars placed the origin of these cultures as more than likely to be
modern day Iraq and the other Gulf States - and the reason for the migration
most likely the climatic changes caused by the end of the last ice age.
These seem to be confirmed by the French Satellite study of the Haappan
cities, which leads directly to Iraq as a source. Paul-Henri Francfort of
CNRS, Paris was sure enough to state "...we now know, thanks to the field
work of the Indo-French expedition that when the protohistoric people
settled into this area from Iraq, no large river had flowed there for a long
time." The “protohistoric” people he refers to are of course the early
Harappans. "The satellite survey shows that a great prehistoric river that
was over 7 kilometers wide did indeed flow through the area at one
time."This was of course the "Saraswati" described in the Rig Veda...
placing the Vedic flood myths in perspective. They could date to 5,500 BCE -
or to an earlier flood, but either way current mainstream archeological
thought seems to place the origin of that civilization firmly in the Middle
East.
[Hermit] It is suspected that the earliest aggregations of proto-civilized
humans were located in the Red Sea basin and that this was flooded in around
8,000 BCE (this matches the distribution of flood stories, combined with
archeological and genetic distribution timelines). Whether or not the people
living in that region had developed cities is unknown, as any evidence is
lost under centuries of silt. It seems likely, as we see the "sudden" highly
distributed establishment, in the period 7,500 BCE to 6,000 BCE, of
proto-cities forming along lake shores and river banks with no apparent
precursors.
[Hermit] It is generally accepted that the Black Sea civilizations are the
oldest of the proto-city builders for which we have definite support. These
were built in both mud and timber, and clustered around the Black Sea area
until around 6,200 to 5,500 BCE when a combination of climatic change, and
the progressive Atlantic ice dam failures and the deglaciation of the Urals
caused flooding of the basin (over the course of about 100 years) as the
Mediterranean broke through and converted it from a fresh water to a saline
environment. The collapse of the North Atlantic ice dams and subsequent
Atlantic cooling (by 6 to 15 degrees) in approximately 6,200 BC-5,800 BCE
("Catastrophic draining of huge lakes tied to ancient global cooling event",
News Science Headlines, 21 JULY 1999, Contact: Don Barber,
barberdc@ucsub.colorado.edu, 303-492-7641, University of Colorado at Boulder
and "Two Glacial Lakes Caused Ancient Freeze-Up -Study" Reuters/Yahoo! News
Science Headlines, July 21 1999) and subsequent. However this change does
not come close to the 20 degree rise in global temperatures seen in
12,500BCE
[url=http://augustachronicle.com/stories/100298/tec_124-4083.shtml]Ice cores
suggest abrupt climate change 12,500 years ago Paul Recer Associated
Press[/url]:
[quote]
WASHINGTON -- The Earth's climate abruptly warmed by 20 degrees or more to
end an ice age 12,500 years ago, according to researchers whose findings may
force a re-evaluation of the history of dramatic swings in the planet's
climate. James White, a climatologic at the University of Colorado, Boulder,
said that an analysis of new ice cores from the Antarctica show that the
south polar area went through a rapid temperature increase at the same time
that the north polar region was also warming. White, co-author of a study to
be published Friday in the journal Science, said that the Antarctica ice
cores show a temperature increase of about 20 degrees F within a very short
time. Ice cores from Greenland, near the Arctic, show that at the same time
there was a temperature increase of almost 59 degrees in the North Polar
Region within a 50-year period, White said. I suspect that this might have
triggered far more flooding than the drop in temperatures and rainfall which
lead to Nomads worldwide descending from their mountain grasslands worldwide
in about 6,000 BCE...
[/quote]
[Hermit] By 2,200 BCE, the climate had become a great deal drier, and
drought (and the disappearance (underground) of the Saraswati) and war,
combined to an Eastward population drift leading to the overthrow of the
Harrapan civilizations. This diaspora is well supported by mitochondrial RNA
mutation marker analysis.
Here is Hermit's "consensus prehistoric time line":
0 seconds PBB (Post Big Bang): beginning of space and time.
10^-43 seconds PBB: End of Planck Time, Gravity separates from other forces.
10^-35 seconds PBB: Strong Force separates from other forces.
10^-24 seconds PBB: Inflation begins, Universe increases in size by 10^20 to
10^30 times.
10^-12 seconds PBB: Weak and Electromagnetic Forces separate.
10^-6 seconds PBB: Confinement of Quarks (Quarks could stick together to
form protons and neutrons).
180 seconds (3 minutes) PBB: Primordial Helium produced.
500,000-1,000,000 years PBB: Universe became transparent to photons. These
are the photons we see as the 3-K Microwave Background Radiation.
12 GY to 18GY BP(Before Present): Big Bang
1 billion years BP: Quasars at the center of the first galaxies formed.
7 billion years BP: Our Solar System formed.
7.5 billion years BP (approximately): Our Planet (Earth/Terra) Formed
4,600 million years BP: Priscoan; Start of Precambrian Geological time
scales from
[url=http://www.geo.ucalgary.ca/~macrae/timescale/timescale.html]Geological
Time Scale 1996-1997 by Andrew MacRae accessed 1999-11-03[/url]
4,000 million years BP: Archean
2,500 million years BP: Proterozoic
600 million years BP: Vendian
555 million years BP: Cambrian; Paleozoic; Phanerozoic
520 million years BP: Ordovician
440 million years BP: Silurian
400 million years BP: Devonian. Oldest direct observation "clock" identified
(coral growth lines indicating a 400 day year and providing calibration of
radiometric dating directly from Newton's laws).
360 million years BP: Carboniferous
290 million years BP: Permian
245 million years BP: Triassic; Mesozoic
210 million years BP: Jurassic
140 million years BP: Cretacious
75 million years BP: Paleogene; Cenozoic; Tertiary
65 million years BP: Paleocene
55 million years BP: Eocene
35 million years BP: Oligocene
23 million years BP: Miocene; Neogene
5 million years BP: Pliocene
4.5 million years BP: Ardipithecus ramidus (i.e. clear separation from
common simian ancestor)
[url=http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/a_tree.html][/url]
4 million years BP: Australopithecus afarensis
3 million years BP: Australopithecus africanus splits from afarensis this
line splits at least three times, but all its descendents are lost by 1.5
million years BP. Australopithecus garhi splits from afarensis
2.8 million years BP: Australopithecus afarensis is lost.
2.5 million years BP: Australopithecus garhi splits into Homo rudolfensis
and Homo habilis which recombine to form:
1.8 million years BP: Homo ergaster; Earliest evidence of tool adaptation.
1.5 million years BP: Pleistocene; Quaternary. Homo erectus splits from Homo
ergaster
500,000 BP: Homo heidelbergensis replaces Homo ergaster
400,000 BP: hunting horses with spears in Germany?
200,000 BP: genetic "Eve"
150,000 BP: Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens split from Homo
heidelbergensis
150,000 BP-70,000 BP Man develops speech
140,000 BP: Diaspora from Africa; dogs domesticated?
130,000 BP: humans first acquire chins!??
80,000 BP: intentional burial?
78,000 BP: earliest musical instrument (diatonic flute - dating in 1999)
[url=http://www.webster.sk.ca/greenwich/fl-compl.htm]
71,000 BP: volcanic winter accelerates human evolution?
60,000 BP: Diaspora reaches China via SE Asia; dog and wolf distinct
44,000 BP: Mediterranean population spurt
40,000 BP: stone figurines, ostrich-eggshell beads
30,000 BP: so-called fertility figurines
18,000 BP: glacial maximum, sea level 120 meters below present
13,000 BP: humans reach western hemisphere
12,000 BP: ice age ends, temperatures rise, rainfall decreases
12,000 BP: sea levels rising 1m per century
11,000 BCE: wheat and rye cultivated in Syria
10,000 BP: Holocene
9000 BCE: pigs domesticated in Turkey
8000 BCE: goats domesticated in Iraq
6200 BCE: a century of cooler temps due to glacial melt?
6000 BCE: hunting nomads descend from high grasslands worldwide
5550 BCE: Black Sea suffers catastrophic salt flood from Mediterranean
5500 BCE: farming villages in Mesopotamia; potters' wheels
5000 BCE: Euphrates irrigation; Nile settlers harness the cycle of floods
4000 BCE: plowing with oxen, irrigation by Nile earthworks; deforestation?
4000 BCE: sheep favored for wool
3500 BCE: Uruk's cities reach 10k population; cylinder seals; the wheel
3440 BCE: Desertification of Sahara begins
3400 BCE: first writing in Egypt
3300 BCE: numerical notation tablets; Iceman mummified in Alps
3000 BCE: sea level reaches present level, temps 2 degrees warmer than
current
3000 BCE: bureaucracy, surplus, warehousing, taxes, accounting, gold mines
2800 BCE: Gilgamesh; Pyramid of Djoser near Cairo
2700 BCE: Ur graves show fine arts, distant trade for gold, gems, spices
2500 BCE: walled cities in Egypt and Mesopotamia suggest insecurity
2430 BCE: earliest record of slaves being sold in Mesopotamia
2300 BCE: Sargon unites Mesopotamia around capital Akkad
2200 BCE: Serious drought in Middle East. Disappearance of the Saraswati.
Collapse of Harrapan civilization.
2000 BCE: Uruk reaches 60k pop
2000-1600 BCE: Brutal climate change in North Africa
c1800 BCE: Sumerian King List compiled; first Chinese dynasty
1628 BCE: Thera explodes
1362 BCE: end of Akhnaton's 17-year reign (conventional dating)
1208 BCE: oldest known asserted mention of "Israel"
c1200 BCE: migrations caused by drying climate? (deforestation???)
c950: Supposed time of the mythical kings of Israel, David and Solomon.
Israel not yet monotheistic; Israel split north/south
800 BCE: no bible texts yet; ritual sacrifice of 1[sup]st[/sup] born
(Morlech?)
c750 BCE: J's Eden, Eve, and Adam; Hosea anticipates(?) ten commandments
c730 BCE: Hesiod's myths of creation
c722 BCE: Assyrians destroy northern kingdom (Israel still not yet
monotheistic)
700 BCE: touchstone makes uniform coinage possible, starting in Lydia
622 BCE: Hilkiah sends 'book of the law' (Deuteronomy?) to Josiah
_________________________________________________________________
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Sep 25 2002 - 13:28:41 MDT