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Oldest civilization in the world?

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  Quote Tobodai Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Oldest civilization in the world?
    Posted: 03-Jan-2006 at 00:26
Every day the starting date for advanced civilization in the Americas is puched back farther.  It is now likely in light of recent evidence that the Peru will be second only to SUmer in the start of an advanced civilization.  So much for the necessity of river valleys.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Jan-2006 at 00:33

Originally posted by Vamun Tianshu

How can we really know the oldest civilization,if all they mention is Asia and Eastern Europe?We canot really know for sure,becuase there were people living in America and Australia,and some experts speculate that life began in Africa.If it goes one-sided,we can never know for sure.
 

I Think you are more closer to the truth than the rest. But i ask you too take early history serious. The less older civilization of present be advised would like the world to believe thier skin color is superior and that thier culture is far more advanced than the less mentioned african people. Indeed all Artifacts studied and kept (stolen) have been by europeans, Truth I ask you to seek with Intellegent study. The rabbit hole runs deeper than some BarBarians claiming the holes outer layer.

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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Jan-2006 at 23:33
Iranians do not have the oldest civilization. They mainly absorbed the mespotomian civilization. However, as an ethnic group, Iranians are the oldest. What other ethnicity can trace itself back to the ice ages? 
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  Quote PrznKonectoid Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jan-2006 at 00:26

This is a useless topic. There is NO top 5 list of first civilized peoples. The process of becoming civilized is an ongoin process that man has endured, that we are still carrying out today. Where you wish to draw the line of civilized and non-civilized is your choice.

Personally I think general regions that began settling in larger cities and using agriculture include the general areas of Mesopotamia, Indus valley, Iranian plateau, and Yangtze river valley. There may have been more though. IMO places like Sumeria or Elam did not just get civilized but rather gradually developed into it by their discoveries and their interactions with other peoples.

Want to know more on ancient Iran?
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  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jan-2006 at 01:48
Originally posted by DFront21

Iranians do not have the oldest civilization. They mainly absorbed the mespotomian civilization. However, as an ethnic group, Iranians are the oldest. What other ethnicity can trace itself back to the ice ages? 




Basques, of course. It's widely known nowadays that Basques are with all likehood the most direct descendants of Magdalenian people, if not even older.

Anyhow, no ethnic group is the oldest: all existed in some form at the same time in the past.

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  Quote Constantine XI Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jan-2006 at 02:05
Originally posted by Maju

Originally posted by DFront21

Iranians do not have the oldest civilization. They mainly absorbed the mespotomian civilization. However, as an ethnic group, Iranians are the oldest. What other ethnicity can trace itself back to the ice ages? 




Basques, of course. It's widely known nowadays that Basques are with all likehood the most direct descendants of Magdalenian people, if not even older.

Anyhow, no ethnic group is the oldest: all existed in some form at the same time in the past.


Alright, alright. Maju you have finally worked your magic on me. Through all those haplographs, the preservation of pre-Indo European language and the various other examples of Basque culture and personalities you have provided you have finally gotten through to getting me interested in the Basque people. That is saying alot, considering my fascination with larger empires such as Rome or Byzantium. If you have any recommended readings on Basque history and civilization (of course you do!) then please feel free to let me know, cheers.
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  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jan-2006 at 02:53
Guess that this will be allright to start with (specialy because I don't think there's so much material, particularly in English):

THE BASQUE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, by Mark Kurlanski.

Look also at Buber's Basque Page for online info.




Edited by Maju

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  Quote Decebal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Jan-2006 at 12:57

Originally posted by Kush-King

Originally posted by tzar

I don't know about the others but I am sure that thracain civilization is one of the oldest!
  Well if you dont compare the Truths then how can you make that statement. To much pride and too little reality.

I'm afraid it is you who is ignorant here. Here: check out this topic for more info on early cultures/civilizations in the Balkans. They may not have been the oldest, or the most advanced civilizations, but they certainly deserve an honorable mention.

http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=6877& ;PN=2

I'd say that Mesoptamia together with a few other parts of the Fertile crescent deserves the title of the oldest civilization in the world. As for establishing an actual ranking, how do we decide at what precise date a culture becomes a civilization? Where are all those dates that you guys throw around coming from? This is a futile argument.

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  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Jan-2006 at 17:52
Originally posted by Kush-King

Originally posted by tzar

I don't know about the others but I am sure that thracain civilization is one of the oldest!
  Well if you dont compare the Truths then how can you make that statement. To much pride and too little reality.


Actually the civilization known as Karanovo-Gumelnita culture (sometimes also Varna culture) of Bulgaria, Wallachia and nearby parts of Greece and Turkey (which is only Thracian in a geographic sense) is pretty old (c. 3500 BCE) but it's not as old as Sumerian civilization that with a date of c. 4500 BCE, pre-dates any other as far as we know. It's also pretty much short-lived, dying out (of conquest probably) c. 3000 BCE, when Egypt was rising and Indo-Europeans were setting their first communities in Europe.

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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Feb-2006 at 00:27

To truly date the first civilization one must first fine the starting point of human ingenuity. Then trace the progress of it to the point of permanent dwellings. Such as this maybe: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/662794.stm . Culture as in the advent of traditions and social behaviour can be traced back to our first ancestor when you see the behaviour of apes in their social groups. The use of tools and manipulations of our environment can be traced back nearly as far. Painting on cave walls show that many family groups lived in caves and perhaps made these their permanent dwellings. Perhaps they could have been small communities. Such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_painting .

As to actually civilization the building of the first city there are many across the board. The South American Mayan civilization though dated to 1500 AD to have such a sophisticated method of living and a road system 14,000 miles long I think this culture deserves a closer look. The Point is until we know our full history we can only speculate, attempt to discover and learn more and possibly we will find that our first civilization was over 10,000 years ago. When researching a society try to look at all aspects of it.chemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />>>

 

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  Quote Iranian41ife Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Feb-2006 at 21:58

this would make more sense if it were:

 

oldest existing civilisation.

which would make the list Iran, China, Greece, and Egypt (if you dont believe that the arabisation of Egypt techinically ended Egypts connection with its past.)

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  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Feb-2006 at 23:20
Originally posted by prsn41ife

this would make more sense if it were:

 

oldest existing civilisation.

which would make the list Iran, China, Greece, and Egypt (if you dont believe that the arabisation of Egypt techinically ended Egypts connection with its past.)



Ah! Do you think that Arabization of Iraq ended Mesopotamian connection with tehir very ancient past? Did Indo-Europeization of Bulgaria end with their also very ancient past? What about Turkey? The memory of Troy was never lost...

I think that you can't make connections between the past and present so easily. Even if the language is kept, like in the case of Iran, Greece or China, there are abyss of time and foreign rule that change things a lot.

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  Quote Iranian41ife Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Feb-2006 at 11:46
Originally posted by Maju

Originally posted by prsn41ife

this would make more sense if it were:

 

oldest existing civilisation.

which would make the list Iran, China, Greece, and Egypt (if you dont believe that the arabisation of Egypt techinically ended Egypts connection with its past.)



Ah! Do you think that Arabization of Iraq ended Mesopotamian connection with tehir very ancient past? Did Indo-Europeization of Bulgaria end with their also very ancient past? What about Turkey? The memory of Troy was never lost...

I think that you can't make connections between the past and present so easily. Even if the language is kept, like in the case of Iran, Greece or China, there are abyss of time and foreign rule that change things a lot.

 

first of all, turkey has nothing to do with troy, troy was a different civilisation. 

 

and lets see, egyptians now refer to themselves as arabs, speak arabic, and have embraced arabic culture, so some could say that egypt has lost its connection with its ancestors.

and as far as i know, bulgarians still speak bulgarian and still have their own culture.

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  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Feb-2006 at 12:20
But the 3500 BCE civilization I refer to probably didn't. Bulgarian (a slavic language) was introduced there in the 7th century CE only.

The question is: give language enough connection? Can we say, for instance, that modern Greeks are the same civilization as the one that built Mycenae and Athens and Thebes c. 1500 BCE?

Or should we rather say: they are the same nation but they have passed through diferent civilizations: Mycenean, (Dark Ages), Classical Greek, (Roman), Byzantine, (Ottoman) and modern Greek. "()" mean transitonal periods of foreign dominance or barbarism.

I'd rather say that the Greek nation has passed by 4 different national civilizations, each one different.

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  Quote Iranian41ife Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Feb-2006 at 16:10

what you say makes no sense at all.

what you are saying is basically this:  turkey can claim hitite, byzantine, trojan, and greek history just because at different points in history these different civilisations inhabited the same land?

and

that Iraq can claim sumerian, babylonian, assyrian, etc... history just because they now have that land.

that makes no sense at all. 

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  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Feb-2006 at 23:28
Originally posted by prsn41ife

what you say makes no sense at all.

what you are saying is basically this:  turkey can claim hitite, byzantine, trojan, and greek history just because at different points in history these different civilisations inhabited the same land?

and

that Iraq can claim sumerian, babylonian, assyrian, etc... history just because they now have that land.

that makes no sense at all. 



Biologically they are their descendants. It's not just about sharing the land but being the descendants of those people (roughly speaking).

Of course history belongs to all, it's no privative on anyone but I'm used to Spaniards claiming the Celtic and Iberian ancestry, even if they now they speak a dialect Latin. French also claim Gaulish ancestry (with some reason), British venerate Stonehenge as their national monument no.1, despite not knowing even what tongue its builders spoke, Italians (particularly Tuscans) take Etruscans as one of their most famed historical episodes... I see no prob with that.

So Turks can perfectly claim the civilization of Hittites, Hattians, Trojans, Frygians, Lydians and even Asian Greeks and Byzantines.

Iraquis can and should claim as theirs the heritage of Sumerians, Akadians, Babylonians and Assyrians.

Sudanese should claim the Nubian civilization, Egyptians obviously Ancient Egypt, Greeks the pre-Hellenic civilizations such as Crete, Pakistanis the cvilization of Hindus and Iranians, Elamite and Jiroftian civs.

It's part of our past and it's good that we look at it with due respect, not like those Talibans that destroy the works of their own ancestors.

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  Quote Iranian41ife Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Feb-2006 at 11:38

Originally posted by Maju



Biologically they are their descendants. It's not just about sharing the land but being the descendants of those people (roughly speaking).

Of course history belongs to all, it's no privative on anyone but I'm used to Spaniards claiming the Celtic and Iberian ancestry, even if they now they speak a dialect Latin. French also claim Gaulish ancestry (with some reason), British venerate Stonehenge as their national monument no.1, despite not knowing even what tongue its builders spoke, Italians (particularly Tuscans) take Etruscans as one of their most famed historical episodes... I see no prob with that.

So Turks can perfectly claim the civilization of Hittites, Hattians, Trojans, Frygians, Lydians and even Asian Greeks and Byzantines.

Iraquis can and should claim as theirs the heritage of Sumerians, Akadians, Babylonians and Assyrians.

Sudanese should claim the Nubian civilization, Egyptians obviously Ancient Egypt, Greeks the pre-Hellenic civilizations such as Crete, Pakistanis the cvilization of Hindus and Iranians, Elamite and Jiroftian civs.

It's part of our past and it's good that we look at it with due respect, not like those Talibans that destroy the works of their own ancestors.

 

 and let me add, the USA can claim native american as their own civilisation, the mongols can claim chinese civilisation,  afghans can claim the mongol empire....

 

is anyone else reading these statements this guy is making?

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  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Feb-2006 at 12:09
Originally posted by prsn41ife

 and let me add, the USA can claim native american as their own civilisation,


Not actually: in this case there was a genocide and a mass replacement of population but I'm pretty sure that wasn't the case in the rest of the aforementioned examples. Sumerians abandoned their language for Akkadian and then for Aramean to finally learn Arab... but they are still there: Kuwaities and Iraqui Shias are clearly descendants of the Sumerians.

I don't kow why you have such a problem with that. It's not about claiming because you can perfectly be a direct descendant of Cyrus that you are not him nor can claim what you ancestor did: just bear it like a part of your ancestry, not something you have done yourself. Only what you have done yourself you can claim as fully yours.


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  Quote malizai_ Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Feb-2006 at 20:24

Harrappa deserves to get more then a mention. The ordering list is a useless exercise, for civilisations coexisted.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/334517.stm

 

http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Ancient/Indus2. html

 

http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic/subject/peoplesandlanguages.ht ml

 

http://www.harappa.com/script/indusscript.html

 

A bit of cut and paste for a quick read and general idea.

 

 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

What was life like, over 4,000 years ago, in Harappa and in Mohenjo-Daro, two busy cities of about 35,000 people each?  Would you have wanted to live in one of these flourishing ancient cities? (I think they sound neat!) Let's see what you think!  

 

Homes: Houses were one or two stories high, made of baked brick, with flat roofs, and were just about identical. Each was built around a courtyard, with windows overlooking the courtyard. The outside walls had no windows. Each home had its own private drinking well and its own private bathroom. Clay pipes led from the bathrooms to sewers located under the streets. These sewers drained into nearly rivers and streams. This was a very advanced civilization!

 

Clothing:  Men and women dressed in colorful robes. Women wore jewelry of gold and precious stone, and even wore lipstick! Among the treasures found was a statue of a women wearing a bracelet. (Bracelets with similar designs are worn today in India.)

 

Entertainment: A beautiful small bronze statue of a dancer was found, which tells us that they enjoyed dance and had great skill working with metals. In the ancient city of Mohenjo-daro, scientists have found the remains of a large central pool, with steps leading down at both ends. This could have been a public swimming pool, or perhaps have been used for religious ceremonies. Around this large central pool were smaller rooms, that might have dressing rooms, and smaller pools that might have been private baths.

 

Food: Dinner might have been warm tasty wheat bread served with barley or rice. It would appear they were very good farmers. They grew barley, peas, melons, wheat, and dates. Farms raised cotton and kept herds of sheep, pigs, zebus (a kind of cow), and water buffalo. Fish were caught in the river with fish hooks!  Each town had a large central storage building for grain. Crops were grown, and the harvest stored centrally, for all in the town to enjoy.   

 

Toys:  Some of the toys found were small carts, whistles shaped like birds, and toy monkeys which could slide down a string!

 

Art:  This ancient civilization must have had marvelous craftsmen, skilled in pottery, weaving, and metal working. The pottery that has been found is of very high quality, with unusually beautiful designs. Several small figures of animals, such as monkeys, have been found. These small figures could be objects of art or toys. There are also small statues of what they think are female gods. So far, scientists have found no large statues. They have found bowls made of bronze and silver, and many beads and ornaments. The metals used to make these things are not found in the Indus Valley. So, either the people who lived in this ancient civilization had to import all of these items from some other place, or more probably, had to import the metals they used to make these beautiful things from somewhere else.

 

Transportation: The people used camels, oxen and elephants to travel over land. They had carts with wooden wheels. They had ships, with one mast, probably used to sail around the Arabian Sea. Seals with a pictographic script, which has not as yet been deciphered, were found at the Indus Valley sites. Similar seals were found in Mesopotamia, which seems to indicate possible trade between these two civilizations.

 

The Riddle of the Indus: What does it take to build a city with straight streets and well designed sewers? It takes smart engineers and a lot of planning! These well organized cities suggest a well organized government and probably a well-developed social life.

 

What is amazing is that it appears the Harappan cities did not develop slowly, which suggests that whoever built these cities learned to do so in another place. As the Indus flooded, cities were rebuilt on top of each other. Archaeologists have discovered several different cities, one built over the other, each built a little less skillfully. The most skillful was on bottom. It would appear that builders grew less able or less interested in perfection over time. Still, each city is a marvel, and each greatly advanced for its time.

 

What else have scientists discovered about this fascinating culture? LOTS! Their towns were laid out in grids everywhere (straight streets, well built homes!) These people were incredible builders! Scientists have found what they think are giant reservoirs for fresh water. They have also found that even the smallest house at the edge of each town was linked to that town's central drainage system. (Is it possible that they not only drained waste water out, but also had a system to pump fresh water into their homes, similar to modern plumbing? What a neat thought! Who were these people? Remember-these systems were built over 3,500 years ago!)

 

Although scientists can not yet read the language, they are beginning to believe these people had a common language! That's incredible! As well, scientists have found artifacts at different sites (towns) with the same or similar picture of a unicorn on them. India Today suggested humorously that perhaps it was a logo - like Pepsi and Coke, only this one was Unicorn!

 

What next? Scientists remain very curious about these people, who lived about the same time in history as the ancient Mesopotamians and the ancient Egyptians. Did these ancient civilizations know each other in ancient times? My personal opinion is - yes! As scientists continue to unravel the riddle of the Indus, we may find we will have to rewrite history! Was it the ancient Mesopotamians who first invented the sailboat and the wheel, or was it perhaps the people in the Indus Valley? Where did these people come from, and where did they go? It's a fascinating riddle.

 

We know very little about this civilization, but what we know is fascinating! Over 4,000 years ago, in the Indus Valley, people built huge, planned cities, with straight streets, and brick homes with private baths!  Kids played with toys and women wore lipstick!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

There has been no archeological proof of the Aryan invasion theory.

 

However i propose they were wiped out by diseases brought along by the aryans, to which they had no immunity.

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  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Feb-2006 at 22:26

There has been no archeological proof of the Aryan invasion theory.



There's almost no archaelogical proof of the very existence of the Vedic period (apart of the lack of cities and little more)...

But the "Aryan" (IE) invasion is probably true due to indirect evidence. For instance: it's quite clear that non-Indian IEs did not come from India. Instead it's very likely that they arose in the Volga-Ural region before 3500 BCE.

Harappans don't seem by their archaeology to be IEs.


However i propose they were wiped out by diseases brought along by the aryans, to which they had no immunity.



Unlikely. Harappans just remained and were assimilated - at least the mass of the people.

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