- This must have been during or near the reign of Croesus, a very interesting king who was the last to rule Lydia, as recorded by Herodotus.
- > It has been exceptionally well preserved because it was reused as a Roman-era paving stone on a colonnaded street
The sculpture is very 3-dimensional. I don't get how it made a good paving stone, or how being used as a paving stone didn't end up conflicting with the "well preserved" part more.
- > The statue was discovered in two parts
So maybe it was about one of those parts and the lower one looks like it could be a decent paving stone.
- I guess it’s unrelated to this particular find but is Turkey now the place where civilization first started or Gobekli Tepe and the other similar sites are not considered civilizations at this point?
- There isn’t really a settled definition of “civilization” but usually one of the requirements is developing some kind of writing system without outside influence. As far as we know the people at Gobekli Tepe did not have one.
Granted you can also argue the same about Incans and to some extent Mesoamericans, so it’s kind of debatable.
- There are very few places on Earth that developed writing completely independently, without any external influence. Far fewer than "civilizations"
- The parent is just failing to explain a more fully developed concept called the "urban revolution", which classically has 10 characteristics of which writing is one and not all of which need to be present [0].
This entire discussion stems from the fact that the word "civilization" is essentially defined to fit the societies people already consider civilizations. There are technologically, politically, and socially complex societies that aren't "civilizations". My recommendation is to avoid the word entirely. Trying to use it scientifically leads to confusion.
- If Göbekli Tepe doesn't count as an indication of a civilization, I don't know what does.
Requirement for a writing system is an arbitrary condition. A lot of civilizations, especially in that region, have strong oral traditions.
- We have also been oblivious to other culture’s writing systems before.
Also would a knotted thread record keeping system count as writing?
- One of the definitions of civilisation is the building of substantial permanent settlements. Gobekli Tepe does qualify in that sense, as does Chatal Hoyuk. Gobekli Tepe features notable sculptures too.
- Probably depends on definitions but there are cave paintings in France 20,000 years older and contemporary with sites in Australia. There are also much simpler Fertile Crescent sites that are older but not much more then holes in the ground.
- I think you need evidence of a system of government, agriculture, culture, laws to dispense justice predictably and a writing system to track and record aspects of the above. Hence we can have Egyptian, Indus, etc., but not prehistoric civilizations. The human organizations just didn’t have enough progress to be considered civilized. Thats not to say they were not advanced vis a vis their other contemporaries but rather didn’t meet certain milestones that mark a civilization.
- A distinctly Western European perspective.
I would rate Narwala Gabarnmang as one of the earliest sites of civilization, personally.
- > A distinctly Western European perspective.
Well, "civilisation" is a Western European word for a Western European concept.
- The first European civilization was the Minoan. Millenia after the Egyptian or Indus or Chinese. Anyway, in Europe it was the Greeks who contrasted people in city-states vs people from the hinterlands; after that it was the Romans who came up with the concept of citizenship and public life --all of that in southern Europe. Sure, the word civilization was coined by a Frenchman, but the idea was there first in southern Europe --I'm almost certain ancient Chinese had similar contrasts between people from the ruling city vs people from the hinterlands and beyond.
- Most early civilizations arose in the East (today’s India, Egypt, China, etc., not Europe but that’s the normal take on what constitutes civilization) else we verge on saying any human organization is civilization (which I would disagree with).
- Go far enough East at the right time of history and you arrive at Narwala Gabarnmang, Sahul and Sundaland. (Not too far from ancient China, incidentally... walking distance, even...)
Anyway, until the work has been done, it is of course speculation - but I do personally believe that the civilization which occupied and cultivated the Australian continent for 80,000 years deserves at least a bit of interest from European guardians of civilization…
- Doesn't civilization just literally mean a system of living together in a city? There doesn't need to be any written record of how they did it does there, just evidence that they did?
- What counts as a city? Anyway, we're talking about a concept involving family resemblances rather than an airtight set of sufficient-and-necessary conditions.
- Urbanization is one qualifier but not the only one. Plus even today we could have such chaos in a town where laws are absent and justice is that dispensed by the strongman/woman warlord and that would hardly be considered civilization.
Uncivilized does not mean stupid or brutes.
- > strongman/woman warlord
any examples of women warlords ? I'm interested because both gendering and not gendering that sentence would upset feminists and I can't tell if this is trolling or whether more thought went into why gendering felt like the safe bet here.
- Boudica comes to mind, I'm sure there are other notables.
- Boudicca. Joan of Arc. Grace O' Malley. There are some others.
- Why would either upset feminists? Have you ever talked to a feminist?
- > Uncivilized does not mean stupid or brutes.
Yet the presence of gathering places certainly does suggest civility! A warlord could command the cooperation necessary perhaps, but would have little reason to build that structure rather than walls and towers
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94 points by speckx 5 days ago | 25 comments