The Lost Cradle of Civilization

I've been toying with the idea of writing this thread for a while. I wasn't exactly sure how and where to present it. So, here it goes. For a few years now I've been reading threads posted by others, I've written quite a few of my own and have participated in some very well written and articulated arguments and hypothesis with regards to various conjecture filled premises. I'd like to share one of my own with you. This idea has been bouncing around in my head for quite some time now.....


Out of Africa....

Ok, fine, Then what? Where did they go and how early did we 'Come out of Africa' My understanding from what I've read we came out of Africa quite some time ago. Some estimate it as early as 123,000 +/- B.C.

New research points to earlier human migration out of Africa, 125,000 years ago

For decades, the consensus scientific opinion has held that anatomically modern humans first migrated out of Africa some 60,000 years ago, heading north into the eastern Mediterranean region and then on to Europe and Asia.

But new research released Thursday paints a very different picture. Similarly identifiable humans left Africa as early as 125,000 years ago, it says, and wandered east into the Arabian peninsula, parts of which were then wet and lush.

"Wet and Lush" I'm going to let that sink in for a minute. Think about that. The Gulf was not as we know it today. It was a lush river valley. Now, if people were migrating out across the desert they would have eventually traveled to the location we in the modern world presently know as the Persian/Arabian Gulf. We know that two of the worlds earliest culture/civilizations are located nearby and have often been speculated upon as being connected somehow. Sumer and Indus Valley civilization .



The direct connection between the two has never been established. Although there’s ample evidence of trade. The real speculation and some here may find this a bit out there or too far outside the box

What if.....

Those two and a couple of others (Yet to be mentioned) had a connection but not within the known written texts that have survived to the present day? Could there have been a period much much earlier in our prehistory of a civilization that was centrally located between the two? Possibly. I say possibly because we are dealing with legends and myths from both cultures/civilizations at the earliest point in their collective histories. Most of which was shared by word of mouth before they wrote their earliest accounts. Both speak of a 'Flood' now before we go any further. NO!, I'm not trying to support any form of "Biblical" archaeology. As a Matter of fact, in this thread I'll strive to [as always] tweak both camps [Secular and Devout] noses.

To me both camps want it exactly how they perceive it "Even if there are interesting and unanswered questions" with their accepted version of events or they simply dig in their heels and fall back on known and regurgitated dogma and beliefs. Sad but true I'm afraid. Not so here, here we shall explore another version of events....

Enjoy


Let us begin. I started my journey reading the following story which I posted quite some time ago. Here is one perspective on the topic which I'm sure many here will disagree with.

Lost Civilization beneath the Persian Gulf Confirms Genesis History of Humanity

In almost every culture and religion of the world lies a story of a lost civilization. The Greeks told the tale of a sophisticated island nation suddenly submerged. However, the Greeks were not the only people group to embrace an Atlantis-type legend; many cultures recounted the lost-city-beneath-the-sea scenario. The ubiquitous nature of these stories, accounts, and legends lends credence to the possibility that in the early days of humanity’s history a relatively advanced civilization was indeed lost.

Now, a research paper published in Current Anthropology provides scientific evidence for such a lost ancient civilization, evidence that confirms much of Genesis 1–11’s historical account of humanity’s early days.1 University of Birmingham archeologist Jeffrey Rose reports on the discovery, conducted over the past six years, of over sixty new archeological sites along the shoreline of the Persian Gulf. All of these sites are dated as older than 7,500 years. Rose states that “these settlements boast well-built permanent stone houses, long-distance trade networks, elaborately decorated pottery, domesticated animals, and even evidence for one of the oldest boats in the world.”2 In 2006, archeologist Hans-Peter Uerpmann of the University of Tubingen in Germany uncovered the remains of three different settlements that date between 25,000 and 125,000 years old at the base of Jebel Faya in the United Arab Emirates.

In his paper, Rose points out that during the late Pleistocene epoch (150,000 to 12,000 years ago) reduced sea levels periodically exposed the “Gulf Oasis.” The Persian Gulf receded to such a degree as to bring above the surface a landmass as large as, or larger than, Great Britain. Rose explains that this landmass was well watered by four large rivers flowing at the time: the Tigris, Euphrates, Karun, and Wadi Batin. Additionally, the region was watered by fresh water springs supplied by subterranean aquifers flowing beneath the Arabian subcontinent. Such an abundant and well-distributed supply of fresh water combined with the region’s warm weather would have supported a lush agricultural enterprise.

I'll now post an earlier take on it as well. I'm not going to comment on the various spins one chooses to put on them but it does make me wonder and speculate could this flood be the source for Noah and or the earlier Sumerian texts etc.

Lost Civilization May Have Existed Beneath the Persian Gulf

December 09, 2010 05:56am ET
Veiled beneath the Persian Gulf, a once-fertile landmass may have supported some of the earliest humans outside Africa some 75,000 to 100,000 years ago, a new review of research suggests.

At its peak, the floodplain now below the Gulf would have been about the size of Great Britain, and then shrank as water began to flood the area. Then, about 8,000 years ago, the land would have been swallowed up by the Indian Ocean, the review scientist said.

The study, which is detailed in the December issue of the journal Current Anthropology, has broad implications for aspects of human history. For instance, scientists have debated over when early modern humans exited Africa, with dates as early as 125,000 years ago and as recent as 60,000 years ago (the more recent date is the currently accepted paradigm), according to study researcher Jeffrey Rose, an archaeologist at the University of Birmingham in the U.K.


"I think Jeff's theory is bold and imaginative, and hopefully will shake things up," Robert Carter of Oxford Brookes University in the U.K. told LiveScience. "It would completely rewrite our understanding of the out-of-Africa migration. It is far from proven, but Jeff and others will be developing research programs to test the theory."

Viktor Cerny of the Archaeogenetics Laboratory, the Institute of Archaeology, in Prague, called Rose's finding an "excellent theory," in an e-mail to LiveScience, though he also points out the need for more research to confirm it.

The findings have sparked discussion among researchers, including Carter and Cerny, who were allowed to provide comments within the research paper, about who exactly the humans were who occupied the Gulf basin.

Great question eh? Who were they? When did they settle there? What were their accomplishments? Where did they go once the Indian ocean began spilling over into the gulf and the fresh water river was replaced by sea water rushing in? Did they pack up and head inland or up mountains which became isolated islands?


This map reveals the Arabian Peninsula with regions that were exposed as sea levels fell, and so became environmental refuges, possibly for some of the earliest humans out of Africa.

What is the true history of the region? What is the accepted academic version? Well, let’s see what Wiki *I know, not my favorite either but for argument sake* has to say about the topic.

Persian Gulf

The shallow basin that now underlies the Gulf was an extensive region of river valley and wetlands during the transition between the end of the Last Glacial Maximum and the start of the Holocene, which, according to University of Birmingham archaeologist Jeffrey Rose, served as an environmental refuge for early humans during periodic hyperarid climate oscillations, laying the foundations for the legend of Dilmun. For most of the early history of the settlements in the Persian Gulf, the southern shores were ruled by a series of nomadic tribes.

‘The Legend of Dilmun’ ?
Hmmmm.. Sounds interesting. Let’s look into that one .

Dilmun

Dilmun, sometimes described as "the place where the sun rises" and "the Land of the Living", is the scene of some versions of the Sumerian creation myth, and the place where the deified Sumerian hero of the flood, Utnapishtim (Ziusudra), was taken by the gods to live forever. Thorkild Jacobsen's translation of the Eridu Genesis calls it "Mount Dilmun" which he locates as a "faraway, half-mythical place".

Dilmun is also described in the epic story of Enki and Ninhursag as the site at which the Creation occurred. The promise of Enki to Ninhursag, the Earth Mother: For Dilmun, the land of my lady's heart, I will create long waterways, rivers and canals, whereby water will flow to quench the thirst of all beings and bring abundance to all that lives. Ninlil, the Sumerian goddess of air and south wind had her home in Dilmun. It is also featured in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

However, in the early epic "Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta", the main events, which center on Enmerkar's construction of the ziggurats in Uruk and Eridu, are described as taking place in a world "before Dilmun had yet been settled".

Lots of interesting references. Are we possibly seeing tiny tidbits of real events watered down through the preceding millennia’s and exaggerated and or distorted by time and elaborations? Now, I’m not saying we should take any of that as being 100% accurate but, I question is it possible that we are missing some version of events that may very well be part of our now lost prehistoric record?

Now what about the Indus Valley Civilization?

Could they be older than first thought? I’ve read an interesting article which I’ll link below that raises some interesting speculation on that matter. It seems they to being just outside the Gulf region and being equally by some estimates as old as Sumer they too could maybe have had at least part of their earliest roots either established by or influenced by those people who populated the lush prehistoric gulf river valley.

IS THE HARAPPAN CIVILISATION 2000 YEARS OLDER?

The recent International Conference on Harappan Archaeology produced an unexpected announcement from archaeologists BR Mani and KN Dik#, both of the Archaeological Survey of India, who claim that new dates from excavations show the Harappan culture began around 2000 years earlier than previously thought.

The ruins of the Harrapan city of Mohenjo-daro remained undocumented for over 3,700 years, until their discovery in 1922 by Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay, an officer of the Archaeological Survey of India. He was led to the mound by a Buddhist monk, who reportedly believed it to be a stupa.

Based on their research, which has yet to be fully published, the two archaeologists said in a presentation: “The preliminary results of the data from early sites of the Indo-Pak subcontinent suggest that the Indian civilisation emerged in the 8th millennium BC in the Ghaggar-Hakra and Baluchistan area.”

“On the basis of radio-metric dates from Bhirrana (Haryana), the cultural remains of the pre-early Harappan horizon go back to between 7380 to 6201 BCE”.

Now many here are already familiar with my views and writing on the topic of sunken Indian prehistoric locations. Were they too just submerged when the Gulf Region was as well? I know some will argue as they always have that the region in question “Didn’t flood overnight in some cataclysm” Well? So what if it didn’t? If NY or London or even Tokyo were to be flooded out I doubt they’d dismantle buildings to relocate them inland or higher up. People would simply have to pack up and either move inland or up fresh water river valleys and start over.

Isn’t it interesting that both Sumer and the Indus Valley civilizations speak of flood myths, All seem to have developed very similar writing styles and had major advances at the earliest stages of known human history.

Is it possible or plausible they both had their roots or part of their story anchored in an even older civilization or at least in an advanced ‘Culture’ now submerged beneath the Persian/Arabian Gulf? We find interesting stories in other location within the Gulf itself. Stories from Bahrain and Susa….

Bahrain

Inhabited since ancient times, Bahrain occupies a strategic location in the Persian Gulf. It is the best natural port between the mouth of the Tigris, Euphrates Rivers and Oman, a source of copper in ancient times. Bahrain may have been associated with the Dilmun civilisation, an important Bronze Age trade centre linking Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley.[18] It was later ruled by the Assyrians and Babylonians. It came under the control of Persians, and then Arabs, under whom the island first became Nestorian Christian and then Islamic

Susa

In urban history, Susa is one of the oldest-known settlements of the region and the world. Based on C14 dating, the foundation of a settlement there occurred as early as 4395 BCE (a calibrated radio-carbon date). Archeologists have dated the first traces of an inhabited Neolithic village to c 7000 BCE. Evidence of a painted-pottery civilization has been dated to c 5000 BCE. Its name in Elamite was written variously Ŝuŝan, Ŝuŝun, etc. The origin of the word Susa is from the local city deity Inshushinak.

So, the question becomes are these locations, Sumer, Bahrain, Susa and the Indus Valley remnants of a much older either Advanced culture or Earlier Civilizations or is it also possible they were influenced by those now unknown people of the submerged location we call the Gulf? What of the Sumerians themselves? Where exactly did they come from? I’m not talking about the Ubaidians nor the Elamites. They came later in the earliest points in known Sumerian history.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this rather interesting perspective…

Lost Civilization Under Persian Gulf?

"Perhaps it is no coincidence that the founding of such remarkably well developed communities along the shoreline corresponds with the flooding of the Persian Gulf basin around 8,000 years ago," Rose said. "These new colonists may have come from the heart of the Gulf, displaced by rising water levels that plunged the once fertile landscape beneath the waters of the Indian Ocean."

Historical sea level data show that, prior to the flood, the Gulf basin would have been above water beginning about 75,000 years ago. And it would have been an ideal refuge from the harsh deserts surrounding it, with fresh water supplied by the Tigris, Euphrates, Karun, and Wadi Baton Rivers, as well as by underground springs. When conditions were at their driest in the surrounding hinterlands, the Gulf Oasis would have been at its largest in terms of exposed land area. At its peak, the exposed basin would have been about the size of Great Britain, Rose says.

Evidence is also emerging that modern humans could have been in the region even before the oasis was above water. Recently discovered archaeological sites in Yemen and Oman have yielded a stone tool style that is distinct from the East African tradition. That raises the possibility that humans were established on the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula beginning as far back as 100,000 years ago or more, Rose says. That is far earlier than the estimates generated by several recent migration models, which place the first successful migration into Arabia between 50,000 and 70,000 years ago.

The Gulf Oasis would have been available to these early migrants, and would have provided "a sanctuary throughout the Ice Ages when much of the region was rendered uninhabitable due to hyperaridity," Rose said. "The presence of human groups in the oasis fundamentally alters our understanding of human emergence and cultural evolution in the ancient Near East."

Well...

I'd like to read your thoughts and views on this very real possibility. I know for some the 'Bible' is the truth about the 'Flood' and for Science if it's not something they can dig up and carbon date they get a bit myopic. Just keep in mind that we humans have been pretty damn smart and resilient group since day one imho. Why couldn't there have been an advanced culture or early civilization under the Gulf which branched out either before or shortly after being flooded out and either seeded or influenced those two known cradle civilizations? It was old enough and central to both Sumer and the Indus Valley?

Food for thought, as always my friends..

Stay tuned.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Hey slayer,

Nicely done as usual.
The link between the Indus civilizations, the dilmun and Mesopotamia, is one of the most important of all the ancient world. It is through these societies and the considerable maritime skill, that one can draw a xonnection, albeit tenuous, between such wide spread places as Ecuador and Britain.

Hey check put the paper I posted on prehistoric trade between Ecuador and Mexico.

At the right point in time the med can be linked to SA, through the austronesians via trade with Dravidians to the dilmun to Mesopotamians to caananite cities to minoans and the rest of Europe.

Certain burial practices, pottery forms and the use of spondylus follow thus trail.

reply to post by SLAYER69


A lot to take in.

Would your hypothesis also explain the ancient artifacts like the supposed 5,000 year old spark plugs and such?

Thanks, Slayer. S&F.

Fascinating stuff, to be sure. As this is my usually busy Sunday, I'll have to save the bulk of it for later. Just checking in to say "good job."

reply to post by SLAYER69

Food for thought, as always my friends..

Yep that was a lot of food for thought gonna talk me a while to fully digest it.

Great work there

From your initial article.

To make it there from Africa under the generally accepted theory - with migration beginning at 60,000 years ago - would mean that people "would have to be running all the way," Marks said. An earlier migration would have allowed for time to inhabit such far-away places, he said.

I highly doubt they ran also.

And, there has been work done in the Arabia region to say that we do need to dig deeper to find the answers.

We maintain that the evidence from Arabia indicates the post-MIS 4 human expansion did not originate in sub-Saharan Africa; rather, early modern humans have emerged from a geographic range encompassing areas of northeast Africa, Western Asia, Arabia, and South Asia. These populations would have been forced to contract into environmentally stable refugia around Arabia such as the Ur-Schatt River Valley,coastal oases, Yemeni Highlands, and/or the Dhofar Mountains during climatic downturns. As such, the fluctuating dynamic between landscape carrying capacity and population density may have been a critical mechanism driving early human dispersal's from the region. Episodes of climate change caused large portions of the Arabian peninsula to become uninhabitable due to such calamities as the inundation of the emerged continental shelf and Desertification throughout the interior.Given the potential importance of these once favorable, now uninhabitable zones, future investigations in and around Arabia should endeavor to explore the heart of the desert and bottom of the sea.

The "Upper Palaeolithic" of South Arabia

I think you might be onto something, but until someone actually does the legwork, we wont know for sure.


S&F

reply to post by SLAYER69


Outstanding Post!!!



More and more evidence is piling up that there was an ancient advanced civilization that guided our ancestors.. I truly appreciate what you have put together here

reply to post by SLAYER69


Great thread.

I know for some the 'Bible' is the truth about the 'Flood' and for Science if it's not something they can dig up and carbon date they get a bit myopic. Just keep in mind that we humans have been pretty damn smart and resilient group since day one imho. Why couldn't there have been an advanced culture or early civilization under the Gulf which branched out either before or shortly after being flooded out and either seeded or influenced those two known cradle civilizations? It was old enough and central to both Sumer and the Indus Valley?

My take was that the flood, which is repeated throughout history to have occurred, may very well have been induced by a catastrophic earthquake and ensuing tsunami that affected a large swath of the coastal areas. Obviously these floods would have caught these early unsuspecting civilizations completely unprepared and would've wiped out entire cities and populations while also changing coastlines and flooding basins. All within a few days...

Now there is a subduction zone known as the Makran trench which lies just off the coast of the Arabian Peninsula, Pakistan and Iran in what is known today as the Gulf of Oman. This trench is considered one of the largest accretionary wedges on the globe, formed by the convergence between the Eurasian and the Arabian Plates. So basically, this area is at risk for very strong quakes and resulting tsunamis.

So while this area is not known for frequent seismic activity, the potential is absolutely there. And my guess is these poor folks of ancient times got blindsided by a big one....

Thanks mate!
Loved reading all that up and more.

I see no reason whatsoever to doubt your hypothesis Slayer.

All that is required is a series of organised and well funded digs to find out.

Personally, with reports of 300,000 - 400,000 year old anatomically modern Humans being discovered (and nudged under the rug) in parts of America and also in parts of the Middle - East, i'd say a much older, common ancestoral civilisation is not only possible, but likely.

Who's to say Humanity migrated OUT of Africa to begin with? DNA evidence only shows a genetic link to Africa, but as we know, DNA is a connection to people, not landmasses.

It's equally possible that Humanity developed somewhere other than Africa, hundreds of thousands of years ago and moved INTO Africa from their origin point.

Then from Africa, several waves of migrations went back out and back into Middle - East and Europe at around the times given by archaeology, 125,000 and 60,000 - 70,000 years ago.

Of course it's also possible to account for the 400,000 year old 'modern Human' remains in both the mid-East and Americas, if there was an even earlier phase of migration out of Africa over 400,000 years ago, but it seems there may have been flourishing civilisations much further back into antiquity than we've ever realised before that may have moved INTO Africa from elsewhere and then after a long period of time, moved back out again.

Interesting thread mate, thanks.

Originally posted by PhotonEffect
And my guess is these poor folks of ancient times got blindsided by a big one....

Absolutely.

And more then once too.

Of course, the "many" is a hypothesis, but history repeats itself as we know. I would think this is where we can find many of our answers. The trenches, the coastal regions. We just cant get down there to do true archeology. I also believe the deserts hold vast amounts of information........

reply to post by sonnny1


Yes you may be right. If my memory serves right the myth about a huge flood is represented in one way or another across a number of historical records, not just the Biblical one.

So to me this would indicate an event that occurred swiftly and catastrophically, and not perhaps as a slower, less destructive rising of the sea type of event.

This flood would've forced those who survived to move away and inland from the coast. I'd be curious about where these folks wound up resettling to form new civilizations, and what these settlements eventually turned out to be. And of course, what was left behind and lost forever...

Outstanding thread and quite a bit to ponder. I have a feeling I'll be returning to this a couple times as well. My anthropology class starts in the morning and seeing what comes out of that one in relation to this material should be interesting.

Very well done!

Very interesting! There is so much beneath the waves around the world. Some of the artifacts uncovered from the submerged locations have been carbon dated to be quite older than our initial understanding of when civilization began as we know it today. In the meantime, these artifacts lay on shelves collecting dust until more investigation and discovery can be done. In other words, they stand as ancient anamolies.

Academia moves at a snail's pace when something comes along that puts generations' of study, peer review, and accepted scholarship into question. Your concepts and questions are quite valid, and deserving of in-depth analysis. However, it seems that those whom partake in this arena as a career are presumably ignoring these more recent discoveries, or they are mum about their theories on the subject to maintain respectability among the academic community.

We got a glimpse of just how cruel the academic community could be to those that have views unlike the majority regarding the more recent issue of global warming. Some very respected researchers were ostracized, ridiculed, and practically tarred and feathered by their peers in the scientific community. I think it is safe to say at present, your views on this topic could be deemed as the third rail of archaeology, ancient history, and anthropology. I hope something big comes along to shed light on the topic, but at present all we have is fragments to a very big puzzle. I found another source to mull over to go along with the material made available by Slayer!

Discovering 10 Underwater Cities: Lost Civilizations Revealed

reply to post by semperfortis




Thanks brotha

I'll soon be revisiting the Mediterranean and places like 'Malta'

reply to post by SLAYER69


S&F Slayer! Great thread once again!

One day you and I need to sit down and talk about the potential that there were even earlier pan African migrations... Some controversial but very compelling suggestions that humans may have reached the Americas far earlier than the twelve to twenty thousand year mark generally accepted..

/ off topic tangent.

reply to post by SLAYER69


You sir, deserve a medal. Wow, just WOW.

Gold Thread

Awesome OP. I enjoyed reading it. The area in question is fascinating. I'm glad they are moving the dots closer together.

I could tell you for a fact there are artifacts and remnants of lost civilzations on the bottom of the world's oceans. 1500 sites alone have been discovered on the bottom of the Mediteranean sea which about 14,000 years ago was just a large lake with ice damning up the gap of Gibralter which was holding the Atlantic back. That's the prevailing explanation for how the Black Sea ended up sterilized with the top being salt and the bottom being fresh water as the waters crashing in from the Atlantic from the Great Flood, flooded the Bosphorus river where Istanbul (Constantinople) is located.

Originally posted by SLAYER69
I've been toying with the idea of writing this thread for a while. I wasn't exactly sure how and where to present it. So, here it goes. For a few years now I've been reading threads posted by others, I've written quite a few of my own and have participated in some very well written and articulated arguments and hypothesis with regards to various conjecture filled premises. I'd like to share one of my own with you. This idea has been bouncing around in my head for quite some time now.....


Out of Africa....

Ok, fine, Then what? Where did they go and how early did we 'Come out of Africa' My understanding from what I've read we came out of Africa quite some time ago. Some estimate it as early as 123,000 +/- B.C.

New research points to earlier human migration out of Africa, 125,000 years ago

For decades, the consensus scientific opinion has held that anatomically modern humans first migrated out of Africa some 60,000 years ago, heading north into the eastern Mediterranean region and then on to Europe and Asia.

But new research released Thursday paints a very different picture. Similarly identifiable humans left Africa as early as 125,000 years ago, it says, and wandered east into the Arabian peninsula, parts of which were then wet and lush.

They change the alleged time that "modern humans" migrated out of Africa on a constant basis as well as what their definition of "modern humans" is..

You must remember, however, that humans ARE related to neanderthals (every population except for Sub Saharan Africans) have a portion of neanderthal 'in them', while this is another one of those 'at odds' constantly changing around subject for them, (go figure), it is no longer deniable, it is a fact. Evidence of neanderthal culture spans to over a half a million years ago... Neanderthals buried their dead, wore jewelry and clothing, cared for their elderly, played music (as a handful of remnants of musical instruments have been found), and their brains were very large (compared to most modern populations).

They were also ancient mariners- www.livescience.com...

The way that neanderthals have been and still are, sadly, depicted is completely inaccurate. Mainstream's out of africa doctrine is complete horse #. And that's that.