Ultimately, its not like electricity, petrol or (in the case of Vimana's and the NASA Deep Space probes) mercury have just turned up. These things have always been here. It's quite arrogant to assume we are the first to discover these things. Like writing, the wheel, sailing, farming, irrigation...oh wait, that wasn't us at all! If it wasn't for the sheer genius of those civilizations that came before us, we would have nothing! The entire world is built on a gargantuan pyramid of history, without which we would still be cracking rocks together to skin deerhides, and we are so damn snotty that we look back and go "no, they must have been idiots".

Almost all world religions bear the startling resemblence to UFO encounters with all their ridiculous, coincidental similarities. There are hundreds of out of place or impossible artifacts (crystal skulls, bagdad battery etc).

There are other such anomalous things like the ancient Hindu's and their words for "engine" and "one millionth of a second" to "three hundred and eleven trillion years". And hair-and-nail destroying Iron Thunderbolts.

If nothing else, Cargo Cults prove that humans have a natural dispensation to worship and the Piraha people prove that religion is a method of recording history. Without anything to worship, or any important events that MUST be told to your children, there is no history.

I think it is entirely likely that a very, very long time ago a certain breed of man ate something (Itz) that made him more intelligent than his peers (Ch'ul) and set himself up as a race of gods above the masses that did not.

Try asking a MORMON to convince you that Lamanites and Nephites existed, or that Zarahemla exists.

Originally posted by C.C.Benjamin
Ultimately, its not like electricity, petrol or (in the case of Vimana's and the NASA Deep Space probes) mercury have just turned up. These things have always been here. It's quite arrogant to assume we are the first to discover these things.

It's not just arrogant, its stupid.

Imagine the cuba crisis would have not been peacefully solved...our civilisation would have ended. Depending how far such a war would reach, if the modern countries infrastructur would have been wiped out, what would be left? Third world countries where 95% of the population still lives in huts and tents.

Originally posted by allmight

Originally posted by C.C.Benjamin
Ultimately, its not like electricity, petrol or (in the case of Vimana's and the NASA Deep Space probes) mercury have just turned up. These things have always been here. It's quite arrogant to assume we are the first to discover these things.

It's not just arrogant, its stupid.

Imagine the cuba crisis would have not been peacefully solved...our civilisation would have ended. Depending how far such a war would reach, if the modern countries infrastructur would have been wiped out, what would be left? Third world countries where 95% of the population still lives in huts and tents.

A ton of debris would be left, that's what. Not just the odd mystery, but the remains of a world.

Yet there is absolutely no evidence of ANY globally spanning advanced civilization. Some may argue that oh maybe the advanced civilisation was localized... But I dont buy that. A localized civilization wouldnt have any enemies by definition, even if they did have the capability to traverse the globe. It would make about as much sense as the Native Indians wanting to go to war with Aboriginals.

so about two million years then according to your data

thats just a tad longer than the human race has been in existence

Sure but only if we take in consideration a nuclear waste The rest disappears within 50.000 years.

Originally posted by AncientVoid
Does that mean the very first human was just as smart of modern humans? I mean there has to be a beginning.

Pretty much by definition, a human being, homo sapiens sapiens, is exactly what we are now, and have been for 20,000 years or so, at least. And yes, that means somebody 20,000 years ago was every bit as intelligent as you or I, or Einstein for that matter. Some people were stupid, some were geniuses, just like now, probably in about the same ratio. The only difference is that we're edumocated, although they could probably make a spear point and skin a squirrel better than any of us.

Originally posted by Telos

Originally posted by Nohup

Pretty much by definition, a human being, homo sapiens sapiens, is exactly what we are now, and have been for 20,000 years or so, at least.

Who said so? Aren't you being a little to cheap with the numbers?

I stand corrected. I think I'm thinking about some research I read somewhere that indicated human beings went through a significant mutation around 20,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age, where the corpus callosum of the brain grew substantially, linking up the brain halves better than they had been in the past. It was used to account for our relatively sudden ability to use written symbols, as well as no longer being able to "hear God," which could have been experienced when half of the brain communicated indirectly to the other half. It's common in people who have had their corpus callosum severed, and was offered as a possible explanation for our apparent loss of direct contact with the divine. Something happened during the last Ice Age to change us mentally (although not so much physically) into the people we are today. Nobody knows exactly what.

[edit on 13-11-2007 by Nohup]

Lack of evidence.The further back you go the harder it is to find evidence.Obviously.
But evidence has been found and it points in the direction that humans were not idiots 1000's & 1000's of years ago.And what happens to this evidence?
It gets written off as a hoax.It gets written off as being a mistake.The people who discover these things are discredited and some are thrown out of the "inner circle" of Historians,even though they had previously been highly respected!


Some sites worth checking out.

crystalinks.com
thothweb.com
bibleufo.com
world-mysteries.com



I think the caveman idea also holds us back.
Just because there is evidence that humans lived in caves does not mean that all humans did!
Look at the world since the emergence of Sumer.There have been advanced peoples living in the same world as the "backward" societies since that time.
We are,in many parts of the world,a highly advanced people.

Yet a cpl of years ago an Australian fisherman was shipwrecked on a small island off the coast of Indonesia.The local people,who are untouched by the outside world,killed him because,it was believed,that they thought he was trying to steal from them.As the authorities wanted to interfere with these people as little as possible they sent a helicopter in to check out the situation.And what happened?
They attacked the helicopter with arrows and spears!!
Its the 21st century yet there are still people who live in "tribal" societies and attack helicopters with wooden weapons!!

So if we can live in a world with people like that,its highly possible that in the distant past,along side those who lived in caves there were those who lived in villages,towns etc.


I wanna also say that i find it frustrating that many discussion's of this kind (and not just on ATS) usually descends into a,"it must of be aliens or Atlanteans who helped us" debate.
Why must it?
A single person can make a huge impact on society.Some examples....Leonardo da Vinci.Isambard Kingdom Brunel.Imhotep.Al-Razi.Thomas Eddison.Al-Jazari.Michael Faraday.Charles Babbage.Abu al-Qasim.Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī.Archimedes.Hero of Alexandria.



[edit on 13-11-2007 by jakyll]

Just wanted to check back in and say i have abandoned this thread - im just really busy at work. Working on a response though which i should get up tonight - hopefully

Based on the information provided below, which is based on findings in archaeology, paleontology, ancient population studies, genetics and many other fields, can anyone tell me where these "LOST AND HIGHLY ADVANCED CIVILIZATIONS" many espouse fit in at. Keeping in mind that if it is much more than c.220,000 years ago then they weren't HOMO SAPIENS. The closest "ancestors" were Homo Habilis and Homo Erectus.


200,000 50,000 population
195,000 Omo 1 and Omo 2/Omo River Valley, Ethiopia
190,000
180,000
170,000 mtDNA Hgp L1 - "EVE" Ethiopia, Kenya or Tanzania, Africa
160,000 Homo Sapiens Idaltu - Ethiopia, Africa
150,000
140,000
130,000 Northeast Africa Wet Period allowing migration
120,000 130 - 110,000BC
110,000
100,000 500,000
90,000
85,000 Group crosses Red Sea, southern Arabian Peninsula to India
85 - 75,000 Indian Ocean coast to Indionesia @ Borneo to South China
80,000 mtDNA Haplogroup L3 Africa
74,000 Mount Toba, Sumatra - Super Eruption
74 - 65,000 Timor to Australia, Borneo to New Guinea
70,000 L2 - sub-Saharan Africa
65 - 52,000 North up the Fertile Crescent and Levant into Europe
65,000 Haplogroup N Near East
60,000 Haplogroup R Near East
60,000 Y Chromosomal - A "ADAM" East Africa
60,000 D - Asia
60,000 A - Asia
55,000 U - Western Asia
55,000 CR - North East Africa
52 - 45,000 Turkey into Bulgaria, up the Danube into Hungary and Austria
50,000 Q - New Guinea and Melanesia 1,000,000
45,000 F - North Africa
45 - 40.000 East Asia coast, thru Central Asia steppes to NE Asia
45 - 40.000 Pakistan into Central Asia
45 - 40.000 Indo-China thru Tibet to Qing-hai Plateau
40,000 K - Iran or Southern Central Asia
40 - 35,000 NO - Eurasia east of the Aral Sea
40 - 35,000 P - north of the Hindu Kush, in Siberia, Kazakhstan, or Uzbekistan
40 - 25,000 Central Asians west to Eastern Europe
40 - 25,000 Central Asians north into Arctic Circle
40 - 25,000 Central Asians joined East Asian spread into Northeast Asia
35 - 30,000 R - Northwest Asia
35,000 O - Siberia or eastern Central Asia
30,000 I
30,000 X
25 - 22,000 Ancestors of N. American Indians cross Bering Land Bridge
22 - 19,000 Northern Europe, Asia and N. America depopulated
20,000
20 - 15,000 N - Siberia, Mongolia or China
20 - 15,000 Q - Siberia
19 - 15,000 North Americans cross into South America
16,000 Haplogroup K Western Asia
15,000
14,000
13,000
12,500 Reoccupation of North America from south of Ice sheets
12,000
11,000
10,000 4,000,000
c.9000 Göbekli Tepe 5,000,000
c.8350 Jericho - Pre-Pottery Neo. A
c.7000 Mehrgarh
c.6500 Yeşilova Höyük
c.6000 Sesklo
c.4000 Rehman Dheri 7,000,000
c.3700 Tell Brak/Nagar 14,000,000
c.3600 Amri
c.3500 Kalibangan
c.3400 Nubia/Ta-Seti
c.3300 Harappa
c.3250 Egypt
c.3100 Skara Brae, Orkney, Scotland
c.3000 Middle Jomon
c.3000 Jiroft
c.3000 Shahr-I Sokhta
c.3000 Shuruppak
c.3000 Byblos
c.3000 Sidon
c.3000 Adab
c.3000 Urkesh
c.3000 Kot-Digi
c.2900 Eridu Flood in Shuruppak Ziusudra/Atrahasis/Utnapishtim/Noah
c.2900 Mari
c.2750 Tyre
c.2700 Larsa
c.2700 Minoan Civilization
c.2700 Elam
c.2600 Mohenjo-Daro
c.2600 Uruk
c.2600 Ur
c.2500 Girsu
c.2400 Lagash
c.2500 Assur
c.2500 Kingdom of Kerma
c.2400 Agade
c.2400 Nuzi
c.2400 Lothal
c.2350 Umma
c.2300 Gojoseon Kingdom
c.2194 China - Xia Dynasty
c.2100 Surkotada
c.2100 Nippur
c.2000 Nineveh
c.2000 Gonor Tepe
c.2000 Altyn Depe
c.2000 Isin
c.2000 Sintashta
c.2000 Petrovk

I am currently enrolled in a course on the origins of civilisation and the "pristine" civilisations for my degree (in an unrelated field) I am no expert of course. The problem with all this is what you mean by lost civilisations. I have no doubt that complex societies have sprung up many times, for instance, if we had not arrived in the new world when we did, what evidance would be left of the Iroqious and Hurons, and that whole situation along the Great lakes, next to none and they had quite a complex society. None would be because they never made the next step, they still lived, worked and played in a completly biodegradable societ, if they ceased to exist it was only a short matter of time before their society was recalimed to the Earth.
However, if we look at the New World cultures that achieved the title of Civilisation, such as Aztec, Maya, Inka, Toltec ect, even though they as distict culture are long gone, there are solid concrete remains of their civilisation. In an archelogical sense, it is neigh impossible to have a civilisation that does not leave remains of some extent, as monumental architechure is one of the primary charactorics of civilisation. Look at the inka, they didnt even ever achieive writing, often toted as a nessesity for civilisation to come about, even though it is actually a by-product. Even they have many great palces left, look at Maccu Piccu (which by the way is proven to be nothing more then a kings palace, it is not that remote and there are tones of related sites around it, case closed).

Point is, I am sure there have been many wonderfull and interesting complex societies that have sprung up and have been lost. I believe however, that at no time previous then what we know has a civilisation sprung up, and simply disapeared. If there are lost civilisations (once again this word is used way to lightly, we spent 5 hours defining it, complex societies would work much better, as civilisation requires at least something close to cities...which are hard to "loose"), there is no cover-up no attempt to hide them, every archeologist wants to be the first, a discovery like the ones you guys want, of a compeltly new civilisation that re-writes everything we know about human history WOULD BE THE GREATEST SINGLE DISCOVERY IN THE HISTORY OF ARCHEAOLOGY (yes i cant spell tonight, im trying to write this quick i need to go to bed) AND THE MAN WHO DISCOVERED IT WOULD DO EVERYTHING BUT COVER IT UP. Meet real archeologists sometime, they are so proud of their tiny little discoveries, its cute, thats theres no way at all this wouldnt be known.

P.S. If you think you guys are going to peice this together, fro what you read, and that the people in the field are going to miss it...Im happy for your self esteem, but come'on, you arnt the one out there seeing this stuff, the ones in the field would know first.