4,000 years ago, climate change caused massive civilization collapse

History records the Vikings having made it to America. I am partial to the idea of societies falling every now and again. Knowledge is soon lost if not used. If a boatload of shipwreck survivors cannot find the right ore fairly close by and are having a hard time surviving then metal working is not transferred. There is also religion to contend with. 'The great spirits say no to cities!' People in general terms are highly resistant to change.

Nomadic tribes would find it risky to try and change to farming. The first year could kill your whole tribe / clan. Then there is oral history that becomes legend very quickly. Legends of starving city states would be tossed around by the sooth sayers and medicine man and the great spirits would have another spit.

Constant warfare is another reason why ideas do not take hold. It takes time and resources to innovate. Constant warfare, constant hunting and tough weather conditions would be a bar to innovation.

While ideas can easily cross distance the new ideas may not take root.

There is also the staple argument of a major lost civilization from whence ideas came.

It could also be Aliens and / or Gods. We just don't know.

P

I'm not denying that diffusion occurs. It is however not necissary for one civilization to stem from another.

Calculus did come about from incremental developments in mathematics. I'm not argueing that it was invented out of thin air. Civilization did not occur out of thin air either. It resulted from a series of simple, logically ordered occurrences that are not miraculous or unlikely in any manner. They are just natural outcomes of man and a particular environment. It did not require one off strokes of genius.

What is civilization? The state. What is required for a state? Excess food and labor. What is required for excess food and labor? In most cases agriculture. What is required for agriculture? Proper environment (that means post Younger-Dryas basically and probably a fertile valley) and domesticated crop? What is required for domesticated crops? Time needed to select ideal strains. Since most crops harvest once a year (especially pre-industrial period) this development once started should proceed at atleast vaguely similar rates even among different crops.

The guy (actually female most likely) in the Americas only needs to begin developing a domesticated seed stock in about the same millenia as the guy in Iraq to succeed in a nicely domesticated high yeilding crop within a millenia or so of each other. When would they begin trying? Shortly after the Younger-Dryas (maybe within a millenia at most). When do we see agriculture? Within two millenia of the Younger-Dryas give or take a millenia for various regions and various opinions. By now we see advancing chiefdoms which have evolved from more egalitarian bands. What comes next? The state helped along by the emergence of metal crafting (diffused and independently discovered), the sail, the wheel and axle, etc. But at first this was still 1 millenia + before major civilization. These were little towns with hinterlands. A few thousand people. Natural evolution grew this into the big state civilizations.

It would all have happened anywhere (that environmental factors allowed) without outside help.

This level of civilization was late in the Americas for several reasons. One of those reasons is actually because there was no diffusion from the old world (I'm not contradicting myself here. Both diffusion and independent discovery are at work in our world). Another is probably a lack of domesticatable animals for meat (meat deficiency has plaqued new world civilization from its beginnings).

When we talk about just one region then of course there will be diffusion. Over hundreds of years there will obviously be trade and exchange even across fairly long distances. Infact, we constantly find that trade was more widespread and earlier than previously thought.

All I'm saying is that we do not have to presuppose diffusion of any secrets of civilization for civilizations to arise in different places.

I really think we are argueing past each other. If I'm not excluding diffusion and you aren't excluding independent development then all that is left is matters of degree.

This is in addition to someone questioning radio activity measured at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. According to Vedic literature there was a civilization that technologically was able of not only airborne but also interplanetary flight. The epics Mahabharatha and Bhagavadgita are holding many descriptions that seem to be similar to nuclear holocausts as we know them today.

Sure, these texts have yet to be proven as true. However I remember reading about a Pandit who lived around the early nineteen hundreds who had transcribed formulas based on those texts. Modern metallurgists in India, following his specifications, have now been successful in producing alloys that are new to science. Furthermore I read about physics experimenting with these alloys and/or/probably formulas.

I’m sure it won’t take long before we will hear much more in reference to verifying modern archaeological findings and interpretations that are now regarded as dubious.

I’m not an expert in any of these fields, have started to translate the Vedas from Sanskrit into ‘my world of understanding’ only a few years ago and references to nuclear weaponry is not an important interest of mine. So, since I’ve read on above mentioned topics I have moved on and lost the links to those texts. Forgive my disinterest in wasting my time searching for those links and my lack of ambition in proving those statements. It is quite easy to google the subject and with the necessary interest easy to find.

I can agree with humans moving inward as the sea raised after the last ice age, but when you say advance what do you mean? Are you suggesting that man only lived near the sea and that is why we lost any advancement up until then? Also why would migration cause advancements to disappear?

Two things really push our advancements and that is communication and numbers. Back 5000 years ago we had neither and so I don't see a good formula for some kind of advance society. This is not to say there wasn't one more advance than what we view as the norm back then, but that advancement would not have been much beyond then what is already known.

But then I would see iron being used more than 2000 years ago as a crazy advance society.

From Timaeus by Plato, the text records a conversation that took place between a Greek named Solon and an Egyptian priest possibly named Sonchis.

The Egyptian tells how the movement of bodies in the heavens leads to the destruction of the earth at long intervals and how all knowledge is lost at these times. The chief city in this district is Sais - the home of King Amasis - the founder of which, as they say, was a goddess whose Egyptian name is Neith, and in Greek, as they assert, Athena.

These people profess to be great lovers of Athens and in a measure akin to our people here. And Solon said that when he travelled there he was held in great esteem amongst them; moreover, when he was questioning such of their priests as were most versed in ancient lore about their ancient history, he discovered that neither he himself, nor any other Greek, knew anything at all, one might say, about such matters. And, on one occasion, when he wished to draw them on to discourse on ancient history, be attempted to tell them the most ancient of our traditions, concerning Phoroneus, who was said to he the first man and Niohe; and he went on to tell the legend about Deucalion and Pyrra after the flood and how they survived it, and to give the genealogy of their descendants; and by recounting the number of years occupied by the events mentioned he tried to calculate the periods of time.

Whereupon one of the priests, a prodigiously old man, said: "Oh Solon. Solon. You Greeks are always children - there is not such a thing as an old Greek." And on hearing this he asked: "What mean you by this saying?" And the priest replied: "You are young in soul, every one of you. For therein you possess not a single belief that is ancient and derived from old tradition, nor yet one science that is hoary with age. And this is the cause thereof: There have been, and there will be, many and diverse destructions of mankind, of which the greatest are by fire and water, and lesser ones by countless other means.

For in truth the story that is told in your country as well as ours, how once upon a time. Phaethon, son of Helios, yoked his father's chariot and, because he was unable to drive it along the course taken by his father burnt up all that was upon the earth, and himself perished by a thunderbolt - that story, as it is told, has the fashion of a legend, but the truth of it lies in the occurrence of a shift of the bodies in the heavens which move round the earth and a destruction of the things on the earth by fierce fire, which recurs at long intervals. At such times all they that dwell on the mountains, and in high and dry places, suffer destruction more than those who dwell near to rivers or the sea; and in our case the Nile, our saviour in other ways, saves us also at such times from this calamity by rising high.

And when, on the other hand, the Gods purge the earth with a flood of waters, all the herdsmen and shepherds that are in the mountains are saved, hut those in the cities of your land are swept into die sea by the streams; whereas in our country neither then nor at any other time does the water pour down over our fields from above, on the contrary it all tends naturally to swell up from below. Hence it is, for these reasons, that what is here preserved is reckoned to be the most ancient; the truth being that in every place where there is no excessive heat or cold to prevent it, there always exists some human stock, now more, now less in number.

And if any event has occurred that is noble or great or in any way conspicuous, whether it be in your country or in ours or in some other place of which we know by report, all such events are recorded from of old and preserved here in our temples; whereas your people and the others are but newly equipped, every time, with letters and all such arts as civilised States require; and when, after the usual interval of years, like a plague, the flood from heaven comes sweeping down afresh upon your people, it leaves none of you but the unlettered and the uncultured, so that you become young as ever, with no knowledge of all that happened in old times in this land or in your own.

Advance might be the wrong word for it. I think we were more or less speaking of the change from hunter gathers to agrarian/city builders. -- and how I found it odd that these changes occurred inland. I was implying that there was a suspicious lack of archeological evidence of coastal civilizations prior to the cradle of civilization flavored river valley civilizations. But I wasn't trying to imply that the rise in sea levels caused us to lose technology. What I was implying is that I believe it is more likely that the first states arose on the coasts and only migrated inland due to the rise in sea level... how the ease of discover of the archeological evidence in the protected inland river valleys, versus former coast lines submerged under 60 to 130 meters of water, have probably incorrectly shaped our world view on this matter.

Erectus- we are probably in fact arguing past each other. With the existing archeological evidence out there I whole heatedly agree with your last post. My gut feeling on this matter is that there is still quite a bit of evidence under the sea, which will change all of our opinions.

Additionally, to circle around back to an earlier post... though it has been stated we as a species have been around in our current form, for at least 250k years-- I firmly believe that the lack of what we would consider to be consciousness was what kept us from going from zero to being on the verge of creating quantum computers over a 6000 year period, prior to the modern one.

I am convinced that the answer is "ALL OF THE ABOVE!"

I am reminded of the volcanic winter in approx 53AD that caused the Dark Ages that really put the human race back a lot. It is only recently that our technology and population has been sufficient to shrug off all that mother nature throws at us. Not that she can't hurt us just that she hasn't caused us to go backwards.

The primary question for the future is can she send us back on a global scale. I am not sure. Yes she can hurt us but can she send us back, I think not!

P

Originally posted by zazzafrazz
reply to post by sonnny1

 

A third of Australia was pretty much underwater last year

edit on 2-6-2012 by zazzafrazz because: (no reason given)

please link the sources to this ridiculous statement. i live in Australia i know that 1 third ( :lol was NOT underwater.... ever been to Aus? its really massive, really.

1/3 is a silly number. We had flooding, in different places at different times. 1/3 of the continent is way off. 1/10th is way off. We had flooding in some localized areas and small parts of central Australia were covered which is a very natural event that happens often. All of the flora in central Australia needs these events to flower and spread seed. It is all part of mother nature.

P

Originally posted by zazzafrazz
reply to post by olliemc84

 

Sorry how is your question on this monument proving that there was a worlwide flood 4000 years ago?

I never once claimed a "worldwide flood". But since most civilizations were along the coastlines it affected many on a global scale.

And how would you suspect a culture carved such a monument underwater? It had to have been above sea level at one point in time.

reply to post by olliemc84


That's just it.

There is a very real history of mankind's accomplishments in prehistory now hidden under the oceans just off many coastlines around the world IMO. But for some odd reason, whenever anybody attempts to discuss the topic/situation many will come out with "The bible global flood is a myth" arguments while ignoring most of what else was mentioned or presented.

Whether the people [Many of whom don't believe in such a biblical global flood covering the entire surface of the planet] they're replying to mentioned that or not, as if they have an agenda against the whole topic being discussed altogether.

Then many of those very same people who champion that will sit back, feel good about themselves with a higher opinion of self and say nothing about what has been proven as fact of ancient locations now submerged*

*Submerged for whatever reasons all non biblical

Its best to approach the topic with out even bringing up the words flood or myth. There is enough data out there that show exactly what the sea level was at any given time +/- 20m that it can just be presented as climate change.

reply to post by slip2break


"Climate change" is a highly charged topic...

Whatever the reasons are that caused the changes should be acknowledged but not part of the topic because what almost always gets overshadowed is the legitimate discussion of and evidence presented for possible lost, forgotten or unknown ancient cultures and or civilization now submerged...

reply to post by 1beerplease


Then we are countrymen/women, u missed the queensland, new south wales ans victioria floodings? perhaps not a precice third, was generalising three big states out of 7 total were vastly affected by flooding ...so shoot me.
Trying to state precise areas affected is semantics, so lets say Huge flooding . If you'd like to give me the precise cubic metres that were affected, in future Ill reference your measurements. Anyway, back on topic...Very large floods in regional areas not worldwide, are a common enough occurrences.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Ok... lets just call it a well documented sea level change. We can leave climate out of it. To deny the sea levels were different is similar to denying the continents were once in a different location on the globe. These topics aren't presented for people who won't accept that basic tenant.

Scientist can have differing opinions on current climate change, and still agree on past conditions. I have yet to read a paper refuting sea level changes in the past--- and if someone can point me in the right direction to find such, I'm more than willing to read the paper and modify my above statement.

How about a double? 4 thousand, and ten thousand?

The extinction of the Mammoth has been tied to human hunting based on Asian evidence. However, the extinction happened at the same time as the extinction of the Mammoth in North America, the extinction of most of the larger mammals in North America, and the sudden abandonment of many human habitations and hunting sites.

This ten thousand period also show a possible small "black mat" layer over North America. Anyone familiar with the KT boundary should recognize a black mat layer as being the layer that demarcates the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs. The black mat ten thousand years ago is much thinner. This is the Younger Dryda Impact Event. en.wikipedia.org...

There is some significant debate about the impact theory, and the clovis people in general. The details of the debate deflect from the important details.

What seems pretty apparent is that something killed all the large mammals in the northern part of North America around this time, it is the same time that Asia also experienced some mass extinctions , and whatever that was seems to have set fire to the continent. (ice cores samples). This drastically changed the environment, and the ecology to a grassland. The buffalo became predominant with few natural predators anymore, and kept a large amount of the continent as grassland by eating down any early tree growth on their plain.

If Asia also experienced extinction events of some of the same animals, but that is attributed to hunting that seems oddly coincidental, and very odd to not consider together. If it was hunting alone, why did the humans in the area suddenly have an increased need for meat? The population mix change? Other sources of food became scarce?

The knowledge of what to look for in sites was retained though, as when people returned to the northern portions of the plains they went back to the same sites even after breaks of thousands years. Why did they abandon those sites for so long if they retained the knowledge of where those sites were or how to identify them?

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is an excellent example of an abandoned site, shows the abandonment period, and evidence of the black mat. history.alberta.ca...

Something to add to the discussion.

4,000 years ago existed a modern , flourishing port city of Pavlopetri.

Pavlopetri: A Lost Society Not So Different From Ours

Pavlopetri is a settlement frozen in time, an ancient city dating back 5,000 years which has lain submerged under the sea for millennia off the south-east coast of Greece. It's a Bronze Age city untouched for over 3,000 years, a link between our prehistoric past and our modern present and a mystery just waiting to be discovered. In 1967 an oceanographer, Dr. Nic Flemming, discovered the site when looking for evidence of sea level change in the area, and despite a plan of part of the site being done with simple tape measures in 1968, no further exploration of the site has ever been carried out. Until now. In 2011 I led a team from the British School at Athens in full collaboration with a team from the Hellenic Ministry of Culture to use 21st century technology to record and ultimately fully reconstruct this underwater Pompeii.

www.huffingtonpost.com...

All of the world's major modern coastal cities owe their success to their relationship with the sea. All had at their heart a gateway to the sea and the rest of the world. Pavlopetri can perhaps be seen as the very first link in this chain which continues to this day.

Maybe this where all the evidence lays,under the sea.

I look at the Earth as living breathing being, every so often she gets sick and needs to heel herself, just her way of getting back to healthy state, her antibodys which we call tornadoes, forest fires, hurricanes, and earth quakes are her way of getting back into top pyhsical condition.

Originally posted by solargeddon
Great to see a thread by a well respected member socking it to the global warming brigade

Gonna take a stab, and suggest a pole shift occured about 4000 years ago ?

With regards to the humans found huddled together with higher radiation levels be related to radon ? As it is naturally occuring, I read something the other week about Scotland having raised radon awareness.

Radon has been mentioned several times in this (excellent) thread as a possible cause of how the many people suddenly died at Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa.

While it is true that Radon gas is radioactive and can be a killer, it tends to be a cumulative problem, one that builds up over time, and is localised. It's not something that strikes down entire populations immediately, as was obviously the case in these ancient cities.

Skeletal remains show that people were struck down suddenly, where they stood. Radon, from what we know of it, doesn't do this. It is known to seep up through building footings and foundations, and does it's damage over time, usually in enclosed buildings or rooms where it doesn't dissipate as it would in outside air. Many of the remains in the ancient cities were outside in the streets.

Radon was not what killed these cities.

Other physical evidence found only deepens the mystery.

Identified areas, especially in Mohenjo-Daro indicate strongly that there was an epicenter, an area radiating outwards from a central spot, that showed damage indicative of a blast of very intense heat.

The mystery is, that bricks and blocks from the buildings around this epicenter show heat damage (melting) more severe on one side...the side facing inwards to the epicenter.

We in the 21st century would normally conclude that a low altitude air burst nuclear blast would have caused such damage, but this was thousands of years ago, so how would that be possible?

Volcanic eruptions, conventional fires, and so on have all been ruled out as the culprit because they wouldn't leave the signatures on the structures that have been observed.

I have a problem with the 'ancient atomic blast' theory though..wouldn't the structures around and near to the epicenter have simply been vapourised, or reduced to fine rubble if a nuclear weapon had been responsible?

I think it would have...if we're talking about the kind of modern, 20th/21st century kind of nuclear weapons we know of.

Therefore, given the evidence of extreme heat damage, vitrified bricks and so on discovered at these sites, together with irradiated human remains, i think it reasonable to say we're looking at a very low yield nuclear bomb.

Primitive and quite weak by modern standards, although fantastically devastating and technological for thousands of years ago...something akin in yield to a handheld, battlefied nuclear weapon of today perhaps. A terrible yet stupendous feat of engineering for the accepted level of technology for the era, without doubt a magical weapon.

This of course is strong evidence that the accounts written in the ancient texts of the Mahabharata, which explicitly describe such a weapon, including the blast and other accompanying physical effects, the mushroom cloud, the radioactive fallout, effects on humans and animals, and on and on are actually not what modern science has labelled them, basically a story by imaginative writers (thousands of years ago, that's SOME imagination!), and is in fact a true and accurate historical account of a technological advanced human history, and our global downfall at the hands of warmongers using aerial vehicles delivering all manner of sophisticated weaponry to the enemy, including ultimately what appears to have been a mutual exchange of nuclear strikes.

Let's not forget, these skeletal remains found in these two ancient cities are thousands of years old...and they're STILL highly radioactive.

We should learn from history...we should report and teach real history, or else we are doomed to repeat past mistakes that we really ought to have realised only leads the surviving remnants of humanity back to the caves and the stone hammers and axes, to start it all again.

Originally posted by MysterX
Skeletal remains show that people were struck down suddenly, where they stood.

In fact, no such evidence has ever been found at Mohenjo-Daro:

Thirty seven bodies total were found, they were in different places in the city and based on distribution in the stratum in relation to the buildings different groups of bodies came from different time periods. Mohenjo-daro had three major periods, early, intermediate and late. Some groups of bodies were clearly early period and some clearly late, a period of a thousand or more years. Another key point is that the bodies actually showed clear signs of burial. The most infamous group of bodies, as highlighted from the quote above, that were found laying in the middle of the street was actually caused by the fact that the bodies were buried during the later period when the existing buildings had been built over earlier periods. The bodies were buried above a road from a period hundreds of years earlier.[3]

Source
Yeah, it's a wiki page, but there's links at the bottom, three of which are scholarly.

I've read what you've claimed. The "heat effects" part is complete and total fiction, an embellishment added years later by, I believe, Charles Berlitz, though I'm hedging that with a David Hatcher Childress side bet.

And it's not unusual to find radioactive relics. It all depends on background radiation at the site.

India is a nuclear power, you know, and that particular province is especially active in that sort of energy production. Not to mention several severe radiation leaks and releases, as well as mishandling of radioactive wastes, have been documented there.

Harte