Hi guys, today I want to discuss a very intriguing time period in ancient history. Our current
civilization is believed to be 6,000 years old. The earliest cradles of civilization
originated in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt and India, followed by ancient China. Have you
ever wondered what existed prior to this 6,000 year old mark?
Homo sapiens became Anatomically Modern Humans around 190,000 years ago. Arguably we became
Behaviorally Modern Humans about 40,000 years ago. Behavioral modernity involves the development
of language, art and early forms of religion. This means ancient humans were as smart, capable
and creative as modern day humans. They roamed the world for almost 34,000 years but have
no civilization to show for that period. Isn’t that strange?
The further back in time we search, the scarcer the archeological evidence there is. I focused
on a particular timeframe, which is closest to us: between the end of Younger Dryas cooling
event and the initial date of the oldest known civilization, which is approximately 12,000
to 6,000 years before present time. During this period, agriculture started, animals
were domesticated and humans settled in clusters and towns. This could be considered the PRE-cradle
of civilization.
Our earliest written records are the Sumerian cuneiform tablets dated 6,000 years old. I
don’t believe the Sumerian culture developed a written language overnight. The 6,000-year
old clay tablets present a sophisticated writing system, and such an achievement requires a
lengthy body of work. In other words, the ancient Sumerian writing language could have
a longer history than we currently believe. Perhaps we just haven’t found older written
records or maybe we have mislabeled them. After all, absence of evidence is not evidence
of absence.
Archeologists found several large-scale man-made sites dated to be 12,000 years old. From 12
to 6,000 years before present time, we have about 6,000 years of unaccounted history – the
same length of our recorded civilization. What happened during this non-recorded 6,000
years? We don’t know much. Fortunately, clues exist that might help us better understand
this timeframe.
The megalithic wonder of Gobekli Tepe in the Levant region of current day Turkey, consists
of many 15-ton megalithic pillars dated to be 12,000 years old. Gobekli Tepe was used
and expanded for 2,000 years until it got deliberately buried 10,000 years ago. Another
example is the discovery in Mexico of an underground mine tunnel which is over 200 miles long.
In 2011, 12,000-year-old underground tunnels were discovered spanning from Scotland to
Turkey, along with a series of tunnels that go all through Europe. These tunnels are maze-like
and the possible reasonings behind their construction remain a mystery. Based on the narrowness
of certain tunnels, some think they could be ancient aqueducts to transfer water.
Most scholars thought that people who lived 12 to 11,000 years ago were nomadic hunter-gatherers
with no permanent shelters. Yet how and why would hunter-gatherers mobilize the massive
resources to create these complex sites? The construction of the stone monuments and tunnels
implies a level of social cooperation, design and engineering sophistication with a division
of labor beyond the capacity of early Neolithic civilizations. Maybe we need to rethink these
pre-pottery Neolithic people and their society. Maybe we underestimated them and they were
significantly more advanced than previously given credit for.
Gobekli Tepe was worked on, expanded and maintained for 2,000 years. That’s almost the gap between
Julius Caesar’s time to now, 2021. This is a long period of time and shows a probable
continuation of a civilization.
Is it possible that there existed civilizations more than 10,000 year ago? It’s hard to
tell because there are no known contemporaneous surviving documents. Plato’s work from 360
BC, however, might provide us clues.
Plato’s Timaeus was written almost 2,400 years ago. In this book, he depicted a fascinating
conversation between Solon and an Egyptian priest of very great age, where the priest
told Solon about the ancient history of Greece and Egypt, because Hellenes lost their history
through catastrophes while the Egyptian history got preserved.
The priest claimed that a goddess founded Greece 9,000 years ago, 1,000 years before
she founded Egypt. Since Solon visited Egypt around 600 BC, that means ancient Greece was
created 11,600 years ago, right after the Younger Dryas cooling event, and ancient Egypt
10,600 years ago, way before what are taught now. He talked about the recurring destructions
of mankind in the forms of fire and water. He also said there were many previous deluges,
until the greatest deluge of all overtook the cities, written records and those who
dwelled by rivers or on the seashores.
The most intriguing point the priest disclosed was the war between Atlantis and the countries
within the pillar of Heracles, which is today’s Gibraltar strait. I am not going to discuss
Atlantis today but will focus on the other information that Plato gave out. Per this
Egyptian priest, a war broke out between the Mediterranean states and Atlantis due to the
Atlantean aggressive expansion and enslavement. The Hellenes won and liberated the Mediterranean
people under the Atlantean control. Some time later, terrible earthquakes and floods occurred
and in a day and night of horror, all Hellene warriors were lost in the earth. The island
of Atlantis in a similar manner sank into the sea and perished forever.
This might read like a tall tale but Plato stressed multiple times that the powerful
state of Atlantis really existed and the Atlantis war was a true historical event.
Unfortunately, the prized historical records of Egypt were probably stored in the Library
of Alexandria, which got brazed 48 BC and experienced further destruction later. Therefore
it’s very hard to validate the Egyptian priest’s words as portrayed by Plato.
If Plato was writing about a real historical event with accurate sociological background,
which he said he was, then there existed sophisticated states in the Mediterranean area around 11,000
to 10,000 years ago. Some states were located close to the Mediterranean Sea and some were
outside of the Gibraltar Strait. These states had their own armies, formed allies and fought
against a common enemy. The outside intruder conquered some states, seized their land and
enslaved their people. Then a strong country won the war, liberated the people and gave
back their land. Don’t you think that these ancient states functioned in a way very similar
to the kingships in dynastic times? These do not sound like primitive societies but
rather like sophisticated cultured ones. If a society had fighting armies, it must have
had organizational skills including hierarchies/rankings, weaponry and food supplies, compensation systems
and more. Consequently we can assume such societies were capable of building large-scale
stone structures like Gobekli Tepe, which requires significant maneuvers of labor and
sustained resources.
We can try and fact-check other claims Plato made. One such claim is that there were many
previous deluges instead of just one. This is probably true, since archeologists already
found multiple sunken cities or settlements in the Mediterranean region.
Scientists think some ancient floods could have been tsunamis. Back then many settlements
existed right along the coastlines. The Mediterranean region is prone to earthquakes, tsunamis,
landslides and volcano eruptions throughout history because of the faults between tectonic
plates.
Here is a map showing the sunken sites with their submersion times. There are various
sites around the Mediterranean coastline and likely many more to be discovered. I think
these are evidence of multiple ancient floods.
There is one particular site called Atlit Yam in Israel. This site is dated to be 8,900
to 8,300 years old and is said to have been sunken by a tsunami caused by the eruption
of Mount Etha in Sicily. Mount Etha is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. If
its eruption caused a massive tsunami at the east end of the sea, it probably created similar
problems for most Mediterranean coastal cities.
At Tel Hreiz, another sunken site in Israel, a 7,000-year old sea wall was found. This
wall is regarded as the oldest sea wall known in the world. That means 7,000 years ago,
ancient people already built stone walls to protect their settlements against a rising
sea level.
After the cooling period of Younger Dryas, the glaciers melted, while sea level started
to rise. The early Holocene Sea Level Rise started around 11,700 and ended at 7,000 years
ago. During this time, there was a significant jump in sea level by about 60 meters. The
rising sea level may have also increased volcanic activity, might even caused submarine landslides
which lead to more tsunamis. The rapid rise in sea level caused the loss
of coastal fertile land thus impacting human migration. This unfortunate event of losing
farmland was stated in Critias, another one of Plato’s books.
We now know that 12-6,000 years ago, recurring natural disasters happened in long intervals
in the Mediterranean region, which fits into Plato’s descriptions: “There have been,
and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have
been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable
other causes… Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be provided
with letters and the other requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream
from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of you who are
destitute of letters and education; and so you have to begin all over again like children,
and know nothing of what happened in ancient times”.
So, I propose 12,000 years ago there existed sophisticated cultures, which left behind
the grand megalithic sites such as Gebekli Tepe. These cultures operated like kingships
from dynastic times and had their own written languages. However, being in an era with changing
climates and rising sea levels, these ancient people experienced destruction and catastrophes
which forced them to start over. These devastating events were like the loss of your computer
hard drive with no back up, thus explaining the 6,000-year gap of missing written records.
What do you think? If you have any insights, please leave me a comment. If you like my
video, please give me a thumb’s up and subscribe. I have a wide range of topics that I want
to share with you. This is Curious Being, I am Tina. Thanks for watching and see you
next time.