Originally posted by Hanslune
It''l only take a few thousand years to completely survey and dig over ever square centimeter of the earth's surface - dispair not!

Maybe not. Our radar scanning gets better all the time, including underwater and subsurface, high-definition stuff. Couple that with artificial intelligence scanners designed to pick out "anomalies" from expected noise, and it might only be 100 years or so before we get some very detailed scans of places that would take us forever to dig to, with any interesting possible artifacts clearly pointed out.

Of course, I'll be long dead by then. But somebody might find out something interesting about Atlantis, or whatever. In their universes, though, not mine.

Originally posted by Hanslune

Atlantis? the chance of us finding that grows smaller each day as we understand the planet better. Those damn ice and sediment cores make strong arguments against.

noone has ever taken into account the real geography of europe @ 9703bc. put a freshwater sea 'back' in the middle of it and see if things change.

how efficient is science at finding things? in 2005, 'western' science discovered a 1800ha middle bronze age city beside a major hiway in the middle of europe. they didn't have to dig to find it because there are 4 very very huge walls that are over 30km long. doh, it was coastal too.

Howdy Punkinworks

I would disagree on the stones. I was referring to modern style cut stones, hard to recut a half carat diamond into anything new. Older stuff, uncut or crudely cut yes it could be recycled but the modern stuff, no not without someone noting the quality. Cut gem stone are not showing up, nor synthetic stones so we can conclude that no one has ever developed that capacity before OR we’ve been very unlucky.

I believe you are over stating the power of nuclear weapons. Yes they are powerful but unless you do surface bursts and do lots of them. Stuff will survive. Nagasaki and Hiroshima are a good example.
We agree on Minoan, memories and stories about Minoan probably fed into the Atlantis myth building meme.

Howdy debris765nju

Interesting speculation, how does one find something one cannot find? Suggestions?


[edit on 22/12/08 by Hanslune]

There's one more thing to account for.
Every new generation is different from previous. A civilization may change due to that, in 3-4 generations it may appear or disappear.
One nation may appear or disappear in a relatively short time because of that.
The same culture may spread through several nations or tribes.

Then there is the culture of violence, immorality, slavery, etc. which spread throughout whole world - but somehow we neglect it. Does that fit into the criteria for civilization? After all, these things are a culture. People are taught to behave in a certain way, they are cultivated in certain manner.

When we look for civilizations, we want to see elaborate social structure. A proof for that would be a city with citadel, for instance. Then, we look for exchange, commerce, ports, vessels, markets, then libraries and schools, universities. But this is all projecting our own civilization, as if there is no other kind of civilization - or maybe this word civilization actually limits us to look at a precisely kind of culture built around the idea of city.

The point is, the culture of cities (polis) was created in order to ensure supremacy by force, everything else "cultural" came as a byproduct.

Maybe, what we should look for is a civilization which did not build cities, and yet thrived. So how can we use satellites and robots, or chisel, to find them?

What means to do such a work does science have?

You see, when Christianity spread throughout Europe, and it took 1.000 years or so, many pagan cults and customs were promptly integrated into Christian religion and they still live, but only experts may be able to really distinguish them and it is concealed by the name of Christianity.

What I am saying, it is still around, yet we have pushed it into the subconscious. And there may be other instances of this kind.

An old profession told me that to find an unknown civilization follow the pottery shards.

In this case we don't have any - there are some that haven't been ID as to where and when they made but they are a tiny minority.

Where to look, look for what man looked for, water, food, resources and protection. He also tended to stay in warmer areas until cloth production technology got a bit better.

Yep, Sahara, the China river valleys and watershed areas, the areas where once great forests/jungles stood in Asia. East Africa, all of the Middle East, Central Asia, the steppes and the southern Siberian woods. The Americas? Right now the evidence says no, but then there may be more evidence.

the oldest known ceramic objects come from central europe [dolni vestonice 25000bc] as does the earliest known weaving [olga soffer - pavlov 25000bc]

If we assume that as is indicated in the fossil record that periodically, the life on earth suffer periodic, catastrophic geological events, then if one were to assume one sufficient to "knock back to the stoneage" a civilized culture, then we must assume a few things.

1. As today, not every human knows every skill in every scientific arena.

2. Immediately after the catastrophe, survival basics would be job # 1.

3. Skills applicable in an ordered society would now be useless.

4. Knowledge would quickly be lost.

5. Previous sustaining technologies would be lost.

6. By the third generation after a major catastrophic geological disaster, the past would be told as legends.

7. Survivors would become adept at all areas of survival, with few to specialize.

8. Tools, basic pre-catastrophe supplies would be gone within a century.

9. Survivors begin to "tribalize" and compete with other "tribes."

10. Only after millennia would significant societies once again manfest.

Assuming around 10,000 years ago we had our last major catastrophic geological disaster, then you see that it took us until the past 150 years to reach any level of scientific and industrial achievement.

For example, if the next catastrophic geological event had happened two hundred years ago, those who would come alone 8,000 years later would see what we see today around the world in certain areas.

Advanced stone work. There would be no skyscrapers, no 10-key adding machines, no computers, no massive steel bridges, nor any other large technological advancement reminder of any kind. No satellites.

Ask yourself how it is that the two moons of Mars were discovered very recently, and yet Ares offspring were Phobos and Deimos? How is it that Jonathan Swift wrote of the two steeds of Mars a century before we discovered the moon of Mars?

If our culture had "ceased" only 150-200 years ago, out of a 10,000 year reset, we'd leave behind less than many current archaeological finds. But some of our residual memory would spark similar questions, as to the knowledge of two moons of Mars, without any possible way of knowing that in fact, there were two moons of Mars. Or the color of Neptune. On and on.

Howdy Dooper

Let me ask you a question. When you found out about the two satellites of Mars- did you;

1. Thought about it and then research how that might have occured?
2. Accepted it without research?

Oh good post, I'll answer and comment in detail after this query, ah I've noted that Dooper has left ATS so I'll comment further on.


[edit on 23/12/08 by Hanslune]

A good list of items. I agree with most but would question 7. People would tend to gather around as that is a normal human tendency, they would also start to specialize. In many areas we wouldn’t go back to hunter-gather levels as we do have some accumulated knowledge – even survival information is codified now. 8. Some would some would continue on, corrosion resistant metals and materials would be around for long after 1 century. A six inch iron knife have been known to last up to six generations in historic times. 9. People would tend to do that almost immediately. I would suspect that societies would begin almost immediately. Again everyone today is culturalized to do that.

Assuming around 10,000 years ago we had our last major catastrophic geological disaster, then you see that it took us until the past 150 years to reach any level of scientific and industrial achievement.

Hans: Yes but in this case that didn’t occur

For example, if the next catastrophic geological event had happened two hundred years ago, those who would come alone 8,000 years later would see what we see today around the world in certain areas.

Hans: Nope there would be massive mounds of former cities elsewhere, endless pieces of pottery, brick and glass everywhere in and under the soil. Humans leave a massive footprint, it will remain for tens of thousands of years – as is shown by what we can recover from those periods today. Think Neanderthals, over four hundred bodies, tens of thousands of artifacts – and they had a fairly small population and technology and disappeared around 25,000 years ago.

Advanced stone work. There would be no skyscrapers, no 10-key adding machines, no computers, no massive steel bridges, nor any other large technological advancement reminder of any kind. No satellites.

Hans: Perhaps but in many areas, huge chunks’ of concrete, masses of brick, glass, ceramic, gems, refined metal, plastic, etc. Besides the regular trash and buried bones. There would still be satellites up in the higher orbits and stuff on the Moon and Mars. The pyramids will still be there too!