Cool archaeological find

[Rain Man]

Check this out. It's amazing what's buried out there.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,452365,00.html

Stone Age Temple May Be Birthplace of Civilization
Friday, November 14, 2008

It's more than twice as old as the Pyramids, or even the written word. When it was built, saber-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths still roamed, and the Ice Age had just ended.

The elaborate temple at Gobelki Tepe in southeastern Turkey, near the Syrian border, is staggeringly ancient: 11,500 years old, from a time just before humans learned to farm grains and domesticate animals.

According to the German archaeologist in charge of excavations at the site, it might be the birthplace of agriculture, of organized religion — of civilization itself.

"This is the first human-built holy place," Klaus Schmidt of the German Archaeological Institute says in the November issue of Smithsonian magazine.

Schmidt and his colleagues say no evidence of permanent settlement has been found at the site, although there are remains of butchered animals and edible plants.

However, all of the bones are from wild animals, and all the vegetation from wild plants. That means the massive structure was built by a hunter-gatherer society, not a settled agricultural one.

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Massive amounts of manpower would have been needed to build the site, a logistical problem that may have spurred the builders to begin planting grain and herding wild sheep, Schmidt thinks.

Wild grain ancestral to modern wheat grows nearby, and the site itself is just outside the city of Sanliurfa, known as Edessa to the Crusaders — and which locals say is the Biblical city of Ur, birthplace of Abraham. The Euphrates flows eighty miles to the west, putting Gobelki Tepe smack in the middle of the Fertile Crescent.

"This shows sociocultural changes come first, agriculture comes later," Stanford archaeologist Ian Hodder tells Smithsonian magazine. "You can make a good case this area is the real origin of complex Neolithic societies."

[Guru]

Now thats a bump

[listopencil]

Originally Posted by Guru

Now thats a bump

I didn't want to Q.

[bowener]

I thought I read about an underwater city off the coast of India that would have dated to around this time. Ultimately it slipped under the sea as the ocean's rose after the ice age ended.

[nstygma]

Originally Posted by listopencil

Here's a fun little video about it:

they think this area was manually buried under 20' of sand 10,000 years ago?

[listopencil]

Originally Posted by nstygma

they think this area was manually buried under 20' of sand 10,000 years ago?

That's one of the theories. As a means of preservation or memorialisation perhaps.

[KILLER_CLOWN]

Originally Posted by WelchaRoo

Unless they find something that allows humans to pass through a portal to distant planets, well, then, f(ck it.

Wha? You never saw Stargate? it was real, yeaha.

Oh and date fail on my part..Is Chiefaroo even still here?

[Guru]

Originally Posted by KILLER_CLOWN

Wha? You never saw Stargate? it was real, yeaha.

Oh and date fail on my part..Is Chiefaroo even still here?

I lived it.

[Phobia]

Woah. They found this again?

[KILLER_CLOWN]

Originally Posted by Phobia

Woah. They found this again?

Yes but now they're saying it's only 4 years or so old...because it was found in 08 they had to redate everything from that point forward.

[Phobia]

I'll bet they found some pretty cool 4 year old dig tools this time.

[listopencil]

Hey, now. Rain Man didn't include a cool little video.

[listopencil]

Originally Posted by Phobia

Woah. They found this again?

Look buddy, you can just take yourself over to Buck's cute little kitty cat cam thread or try to find Teo's girlfriend if you want. There's Science going on in here.

[Guru]

Originally Posted by listopencil

Look buddy, you can just take yourself over to Buck's cute little kitty cat cam thread or try to find Teo's girlfriend if you want. There's Science going on in here.

I want the africa kill cam

[listopencil]

Originally Posted by Guru

I want the africa kill cam

I was kind of hoping that the kittens would have to survive an attack by jackals, but nothing yet.

[bevischief]

They just found a city in Africa that is about 200,000 years old.