200,000 Year Old South African Civlization! color me amazed

Their dating method seems to be built on circumstantial evidence. I'm not saying they are definitely wrong about the dating, but I'm not convinced that the dating is accurate, either.

reply to post by MrsBlonde


I doubt it. They look similar to Zimbabwe ruins thought to be Greek but turned out not to be.

lmgtfy.com...

Originally posted by Hic sunt dracones
Its about time all the ancient human history should be "torn up" and rewritten, lets start from scratch again with what we know now...
All the evidence does not fit the history anymore

This just one more thing to show that the history books are wrong. Just how much of history do we really know? I am starting to think that a lot of the history books are just made up. They have to have something to write down so they just make a lot of it up and over time people do not know the difference. But now it is starting to come back to bit them in the rear as more and more things come to light.

reply to post by Gorman91


There isn't really anyway to know how smart people were 200.000 years ago.

We are only walking kindergarten steps on rating animal intelligence as we speak and they are very much alive.

I don't think chances are high their will be anything found that can tell us how they lived that long ago. This discussion can only end in what we think happened.

Unfortunately those guys could have already invented pijnenburg and had a national sport called koekhappen




On topic.

Thanks for the thread i'm always fascinated by this stuff.

Originally posted by Sinter Klaas
reply to post by Gorman91

 

There isn't really anyway to know how smart people were 200.000 years ago...

If we are talking about Homo sapiens -- also known as "Modern Humans" -- from 200,000 years ago, then they ARE as smart as us.

They would be physiologically the same as us, so they would be as clever as us and have the same problem-solving and critical-thinking skills that we have. The only advantage we have is the written word which allows us to pass our knowledge base down to the next generation to BUILD UPON that knowledge base.

HOWEVER (and this is a big however), as I said in my post above, I think the method they used to date this civilization is highly suspect and not at all something I would call "definitive". This civilization could be only a few thousand or even a few hundred years old (especially considering the state of the ruins).

I don't care what those researchers say, but there is no "real" evidence that this civilization is from 200,000 years ago.



[edit on 7/25/2010 by Soylent Green Is People]

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


reply to post by Sinter Klaas


Incorrect. 200,000 years ago, humanity was one of several human species. We were barbarians living in caves. and we were NOT, I repeat, NOT psychologically the same.

Again, we call this Behavioral Modernity. It is a fact that our bodies are older than our minds. Behavioral Modernity is the time when we started using that intelligence like we do now. When the biochemistry of the mind, and the mind itself, evolved to open the keys to imagination and art and science. It is when the cave paintings began and when we started developing.

This was 50,000 years ago.

Humanity is 50,000 years old as we are now. 200,000 years ago we were busy killing Homo sapiens idaltu and Homo Erectus and various other groups. No society. We were still animals.

[edit on 25-7-2010 by Gorman91]

[edit on 25-7-2010 by Gorman91]

reply to post by Gorman91


My understanding (which may be wrong) is that Homo sapiens (the species we belong to) started about 200,000 years ago.

If that is correct, then the Homo Sapiens from 200,000 years ago and the Homo sapiens from today (i.e., us) are the exact same species, and are therefore physiologically identical...for the most part. All of which means we have similar brains, similar problem-solving abilities, and thus similar intelligence. We may "know more" today, but that's only because we can pass our knowledge to our descendants -- but knowing more is not the same as being more intelligent.

However, I want to reiterate that I'm not convinced the civilization described in the OP is really 200,000 years old. They need much more evidence.

Originally posted by Gorman91
Humanity is 50,000 years old as we are now. 200,000 years ago we were busy killing Homo sapiens idaltu and Homo Erectus and various other groups. No society. We were still animals.

Right -- perhaps there was no society. However, that does not mean the brains of 200,000 year old Homo sapiens are very different than our brains. Perhaps we as a species have grown our brains a bit in 200,000 years, but -- again -- we are all the same species, thus physiologically very similar to each other.

You seem to be talking about differences in behavior and society, but I'm strictly talking intelligence.



[edit on 7/25/2010 by Soylent Green Is People]

I have never read the Bible, but i do know some of it stories. For some reason seeing these particular pictures and the coincidences in timing of the evolutionary developments, it reminds me of the Tower of Babel.

Genesis 11 The Tower of Babel 1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As men moved eastward, [a] they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. 3 They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." 5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other." 8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel [c] —because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Wiki is no help on the location on Shinar. I don't know how much else could be dug up.
Wikipedia Shinar

The location of the structures westwards of the coast fits in, as does the timeline of the city itself with our "Out of Africa" origins, if the actual time constraints of the Bible are ignored

reply to post by Gorman91



So the history books tells us. But just pretend for the moment that the history books are wrong as seems to be the case more and more now days. I have always believe that the Earth was far older than we think it is and in fact I believe the whole universe it far older than we think it is. Lets say that 200,000 year old number is right. We may have been around a lot longer than any one knows. We learn something new everyday. Just keep an open mind is all I am saying.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
Its very difficult for stuff to survive even 1000 years, not to mention 200 000. This is great news if true. Those who claim we were apes 200 000 years ago wont like it though...

People will start attacking carbon dating now. Which will be funny to see the very people who support it...will now call carbon dating junk science.

I'm sure one of them will be along very shortly.

Originally posted by Come Clean
People will start attacking carbon dating now. Which will be funny to see the very people who support it...will now call carbon dating junk science.

I'm sure one of them will be along very shortly.

They did not use carbon dating to support their claim that the site was built 160,00-200,000 years ago. They used historical astrological configurations to arrive at their conclusion.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


What about a different species all together ? Now extinct or interstellar o something ?

You won't have to defend our current scientific consensus you now. I'm aware of it.
However... were you there ? No evidence means it didn't exist ?

Just keep an open mind. How can I talk about a hollow earth or reptilians when I block out the countless possibilities, species, civilizations that are simply not part of that really tiny fraction of remains we are lucky enough to find after it fought its battle with time erosion and the very small possibility to get fossilized in the first place.

We just do not know all the ins and outs of our history and we take the little we know link it into a timeline and say that's it.

That's absurd.

I mean. Just a few days ago news came out about a second Stone Hench in what was thought to be an open field.

Yet we blindfold ourselves with our arrogance ?

Anyway...

Were the Boskoop skulls not found in the same vicinity ? Have they been explained yet ?

reply to post by fixer1967


40,000 years is enough time for 5 iterations of civilization up to the atomic age and destroying themselves. There's plenty of room for your theory without science being wrong. And as far as I can tell, history books haven't been that wrong in a while. People claim, but have no proof.



reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


Mitochondrial Eve is 200,000 years old. But this does not mean our species, Humanity as a species, towards which how we are today, is 50,000 years old. People I know joke about it. Like I said, our brains are younger than our bodies, The human brain that we use today is 50,000 years old. This is more or less genetic drift. The species was Homo sapiens then and now. But 50,000 years ago behavioral modernity occurred, in which our brains fundamentally changed.

This was the advent of exponential growth. In other words, the capacity for knowledge was the same 200,000 years ago. But the ability to exponentially grow and develop, which is what we are renowned for, is with behavioral modernity.

I'll quote the section for you.

Modern human behavior is observed in cultural universals which are the key elements shared by all groups of people throughout the history of humanity. Examples of elements that may be considered cultural universals are language, religion, art, music, myth, cooking, games, and jokes. While some of these traits distinguish Homo sapiens from other species in their degree of articulation in language based culture, they all have analogues in animal ethology. Since cultural universals are found in all cultures including some of the most isolated indigenous groups, scientists believe that these traits must have evolved or have been invented in Africa prior to the exodus.[6][7][8][9]
Classic evidence of behavioral modernity includes:
finely-made tools
fishing
evidence of long-distance exchange or barter among groups
systematic use of pigment (such as ochre) and jewellery for decoration or self-ornamentation
figurative art (cave paintings, petroglyphs, figurines)
game playing and music
burial
A more terse definition of the evidence is the behavioral B's: blades, beads, burials, bone toolmaking, and beauty.[10]
It might be thought that behavioral modernity preceded language, but the complex behaviors from the list above are thought to suggest language was necessary and that they must have been at least contemporary developments.[citation needed]

[edit on 25-7-2010 by Gorman91]

[edit on 25-7-2010 by Gorman91]

reply to post by Gorman91


Can you explain your phrase that our bodies are older then our minds? How does the brain just suddenly change 50,000 years ago? In layman terms would be best please, I am not very educated in this area. Thankee.

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


I am keeping an open mind. I thought that was clear by my post when I said:

[The researchers'] dating method seems to be built on circumstantial evidence. I'm not saying they are definitely wrong about the dating, but I'm not convinced that the dating is accurate, either.

I clearly pointed out that I wasn't saying the dating the civilization to 200,000 years ago was definitely wrong -- but I still contend that their dating method is highly suspect.

I can keep an open mind, but I'm still going to use my own logic and critical thinking to try and understand what is being asserted here by these researchers, and my logic is telling me that the evidence of the three stones and Orion's' belt is highly circumstantial and not at all definitive.

Put it this way -- I'm not going to automatically believe every story I read on the internet, just because it's a "cool alternative theory". If I did, then my knowledge would be full of conflicting, contradictory, and inconsistent theories.


[edit on 7/25/2010 by Soylent Green Is People]

reply to post by Gorman91


Thank you. I understand what you are saying and I will study the subject a bit more to familiarize myself with what you wrote about our brains undergoing a change 50,000 years ago.

I've always used this argument about the ancient Egyptians possessing the same brains as us, thus being as intelligent as us, which leads to them being able to build pyramids without alien intervention...However, that is only 5000-10,000 years ago, not 200,000.

Gorman.. evolution is a theory, not a fact... unless you have a time machine you cannot prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that intelligent beings were not here 200,000 years ago. get you facts straight before "debunking" anyone.

reply to post by Gorman91


To back you up a little.

Not so long ago another human species was found. If I remember it correct the evidence showed that these humanoids lived along side modern man. Which could have lasted to a point only a few centuries ago.

Modern man were the surviving members of a population bottleneck from an estimate of 90 to 70.000 years ago from a natural cataclysm that could have wiped us of the planet as it caused the population to drop to only an estimate of 2000 members. The eruption of lake Toba, a super volcano has been pointed at as probable cause of this event.

The Island species of humanoid have been found on the island of Flores and is called Flores man or hobbit for some. They show all the characteristics what happens to a species trapped in a confined habitat and only grew up to the size of a small child. The proof of the remains being adult were there teeth that still had about the same size of a normal man. Apparently the jaw and teeth are the last to evolve along with the rest of the body. Their brains only measured the size of an orange. We however do not know if they were able to speak, although the large teeth would possibly be an issue.

Their is not really a good way to rate their intelligence as they are not here anymore, and recent studies with birds tell us that it is not the size of our brains that determine the intelligence of an animal.

Originally posted by AugustusMasonicus

Originally posted by Come Clean
People will start attacking carbon dating now. Which will be funny to see the very people who support it...will now call carbon dating junk science.

I'm sure one of them will be along very shortly.

They did not use carbon dating to support their claim that the site was built 160,00-200,000 years ago. They used historical astrological configurations to arrive at their conclusion.

True....

I'm placing this one in the almost debunked category then.

reply to post by sputniksteve


A little something called the ice age. With just 20,000 members left, the human species was close to extinction. It was here that severe competition caused the sudden change in how the brain worked. Species like Neanderthals and homo erectus could not think exponentially, had no imagination, or do such things. Humans could. We created art, science, religion, burials, and many many other things which define us. As the article says, the most isolated groups of humans whom have never met modern man share traits and are all linked to a common ancestor in Africa. Where as mitochondrial eve is 200,000 years old, Y-chromosomal Adam is a lot younger, 50,000 to 90,000 years old. Behavioral modernity pushes this to 50,000 to 60,000 years ago as the most common ancestor. But 50,000 is safer because that was the melt down period for the glaciers.

From there, any humanoid surviving that was not our species was exterminated or out competed. It's sad. It was the most united humanity every was. And it was because we were at war with our cousin species.