[HN Gopher] Life-size camel sculptures in Saudi Arabia are older...
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Life-size camel sculptures in Saudi Arabia are older than
Stonehenge, pyramids
Author : pseudolus
Score : 364 points
Date : 2021-09-17 10:14 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| anderson1993 wrote:
| NYC should contact a Rat Terrier Club in the area. I believe only
| a couple of these dogs were bought by and ' employed' by those in
| charge of the stores of grain in Egypt. ( They had reached the
| maximum amount of 'poison' that they had been using on the
| grain.) Within days, they had it cleared out of rats. As the
| terriers spent their off time with their handlers and families,
| very soon those neighborhoods were also devoid of rats. As an
| aside, the dogs were taught not to eat their prey, thus
| safeguarding them from contracting whatever disease the rats may
| have been carrying.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Very few "White Americans" alive today have ravaged any
| American Indian sites.
|
| Even if you have the deranged notion that people should bear
| the responsibility for what their ancestors did hundreds of
| years ago, it's still just tiny fraction of current Americans
| that should be the target of your anger.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| I understand where you're coming from, but in the interests
| of education it should be pointed out that a significant
| amount of destruction of native sites has occurred within
| "our" lifetimes. For instance, many suburbs in Chandler, AZ
| were directly built on bulldozed Hohokam pueblos in the
| 50s-80s. The power plant in Needles, CA was built over what
| was formerly the largest geoglyph in North America during the
| 70s, destroying most of the site. The wholesale looting of
| mimbres sites with heavy machinery mostly began in the 70s as
| well. The main reason this has slowed in recent years is that
| the looters have already gotten most of the obvious sites
| that aren't explicitly protected.
|
| Most people aren't aware of how much destruction of
| archaeological heritage suburban development has entailed. A
| good percentage of Americans, especially those in the great
| lakes or Southwest regions, have used infrastructure built on
| native sites. It's pretty inescapable.
| Grustaf wrote:
| That's insane, one would have thought that would have been
| protected at least since the early 1900s.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Add another one to the list:
|
| In the 1950's, the Dalles Dam was built and submerged one
| of North America's longest continuously populated
| settlement (over 10,000 years).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celilo_Falls
| Majestic121 wrote:
| Did you intend to comment on another thread ? The article is
| about sculptures in Saudi Arabia, that are already protected,
| it's unrelated to the US
| Grustaf wrote:
| This used to be a comment about how all White Americans
| should protect Indian heritage. Which they of course should,
| but he also accused all White people of "ravaging" Indian
| sites etc.
| notriskfree wrote:
| European settlers trashed an entire continent in a few
| hundred years; stop and imagine what it must have looked
| like when they first arrived. How this ends up filed under
| Camel art is a mystery.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Even if that were 100% true, he was blaming all present
| day "White Americans", none of whom were in any way
| involved.
| shusaku wrote:
| > the time of the statues' creation, around the sixth millennium
| B.C.E., the Arabian Peninsula was filled with grassland and much
| wetter than it is now.
|
| We're camels significantly different during this time? How much
| of their current features are things evolved to deal with the
| desert climate?
| betwixthewires wrote:
| They were very much like they are now, not different physiology
| in any recognizable way. But they're very adaptable creatures.
| They're not truly native to that region, they are actually from
| North America, specifically the northern latitudes. That should
| give you an idea of how adaptable they are.
| valarauko wrote:
| > _They 're not truly native to that region, they are
| actually from North America, specifically the northern
| latitudes._
|
| These Dromedary camels, _Camelus dromedarius_ , are very much
| native to the region. The Dromedary likely evolved right in
| the Arabian peninsula, having separated from the Bactrian of
| Central Asia more than a million years ago. The North
| American ancestor, _Paracamelus_ , arrived in Eurasia maybe
| 7.5 million years ago. While North America is the home of the
| last common ancestor of modern camelids, it is not the native
| home of any modern camels.
| BugWatch wrote:
| Once again, an article all about something visual with neigh a
| proper visualisation in it, let alone a photo of a greater scope,
| and no original design trace out proposal or recreation. Both of
| the provided examples essentially look like weather-exposed
| rocks.
| afurculita wrote:
| Something like The Sphinx from Romania
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphinx_(Romania)). At a first
| look you'll say it is an ancient sculpture.
| matzab wrote:
| The NYT article they link to in the first paragraph does a good
| job providing that exact thing:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/science/camels-sculptures...
| bruce343434 wrote:
| This seems really standard for any archeological article,
| sadly. Every time with the bait.
| ryantgtg wrote:
| > Carving each relief took between 10 and 15 days; the
| ambitious project was likely a communal effort.
|
| Also, where did this 10-15 day estimate come from? They
| shouldn't just drop a detail like that with no explanation!
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| It's harder than it looks. My own photos of my sites/finds
| have rarely turned out interesting either. Usually things are
| simply an unremarkable pile of stones, unidentifiable blobs,
| or far too massive for the camera.
|
| That's leaving aside the ethical issues with photographing
| funerary sites/remains, which most archaeologists avoid by
| simply not releasing any such photographs to the media.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Diagrams work great too but they require more work, skill,
| and $ than (maybe) paying an intern to write body copy.
| sophacles wrote:
| Personally, id find those interesting too - I've always
| found archaeology grabs my attention.
|
| Once I asked a local archaeologist about why articles are
| always like that, and she told me that there's also a
| problem with looters. They try to only release pictures
| that don't give away the location, to prevent looters from
| ruining a site. Not sure if that's a general thing or her
| specific area of expertise.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Depends on the location. You usually don't release wide
| landscape shots if that's a major concern, but super
| localized photos aren't necessarily an issue. Not all
| areas take the same degree of precaution though (e.g.,
| scheduled monuments in the UK are pretty much public).
|
| Anyway, if you'd like an example of an "onsite" photo,
| I've uploaded one from an ancient settlement (2k+ years
| old): https://i.imgur.com/0ITzYZD.png
|
| Bonus points if you can figure out which country it's
| from or better yet, pinpoint the location to within 50
| miles.
| sophacles wrote:
| Thanks for the example! I'm not so good at sleuthing
| things from photos, so no bonus points for me :D.
|
| I sort of see what you mean about "unremarkable", at
| least without context. Knowing its an archaeological site
| of course raises questions: What does an archaeologist
| see in those rocks that I don't? What made people settle
| here 2kya (besides the water source)? Why dig here to
| begin with (instead of a km either direction, instead of
| 5m either direction, etc)?
|
| Similarly, if I was reading about the dig (a report or
| article or whatnot), I'd be asking questions like: what
| does the place these ancient humans chose look like? What
| does "near the river bank" mean? etc. This photo would
| help me understand those.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| The key feature is actually the little slope you can see
| in profile. That's the flat land above the river being
| eroded down into the waterway, exposing subsurface
| materials. Some of the rocks had fallen out of that bank
| and it looked suspiciously anthropogenic. We were already
| in the area looking along that river because the
| statistical model of the landscape built up over previous
| expeditions + other evidence indicated that there should
| be something to find. There were a number of other sites
| (e.g. lithic production) found the same way. These rocks
| in particular were probably to support something like
| semi-permanent tent poles.
|
| As for timing, people had been in the area since the last
| glacial maximum. I actually have photos of a blade from
| prior to the LGM in a nearby area, but it has colleagues
| visible in it. We simply haven't found evidence of people
| building these kinds of structures much prior to then in
| that area. I should mention that I'm deliberately
| underestimating this particular site's age because
| definitive dating hadn't come back last time I heard and
| it makes the guessing harder.
| laurent92 wrote:
| Internet Historian is humorously documenting that it is
| possible to pinpoint the worldwide location of a flag
| with only the blue sky behind, or inside a hut lost in
| lapland, or inside a flat without outside light, or even
| a stone buried somewhere in the world (South of Spain).
| https://youtu.be/vw9zyxm860Q
|
| I understand it would be possible with a photo to guess
| which side a rock faces, thanks to the sun/shadows, and
| then find all the rocks pointing this way in a country
| using satellite image, and filtering those which are not
| currently at war etc.
| cheese_van wrote:
| I did a solid for an archaeologist once in the Middle East and so
| stayed in the dig camp awhile.
|
| It struck me how eager archaeologists were to get to work, and
| how happy they were in the field. Hot as hell, dusty, disease
| ridden, flies, bad food. And they were ecstatic.
|
| They were all poor as fuck though, so there are trade offs.
| lyaa wrote:
| I'm pleasantly surprised that these sculptures survived the
| centuries of intentional destruction of such artifacts in the
| region. The scratched(?) graffiti is disappointing though.
| donohoe wrote:
| And older than Ireland's Newgrange - which was built around 3200
| BC and is also older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newgrange
| rob74 wrote:
| In all fairness, building something like Newgrange or
| Stonehenge (never mind the Egyptian pyramids) requires orders
| of magnitude more effort than carving some camels out of soft
| sandstone...
| [deleted]
| illwrks wrote:
| I was about to say they have a powerful imagination to see camels
| in that eroded rock... however after a quick search, there are
| better photos online:
| https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/MAGAZINE-2-000-year-old-...
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Don't forget, they look so eroded because the sculptures have
| been eroding for 8,000+ years.
|
| Also, the original article (original with regard the this HN
| thread, not the older article you linked to) talked about
| examining the tool marks. It's not just examining the large
| shape, it's about seeing the method of construction on a
| smaller scale.
| dmix wrote:
| I wonder if it was at ground level too when they carved it...
| cronix wrote:
| After 8000 years of erosion, it's amazing they can even still
| find tool marks.
| 2rsf wrote:
| Wow, this is amazing
| ornornor wrote:
| Even more amazing is that some people inject Botox into
| camels to make them look better...
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-42802901
| dublin wrote:
| Wow, that sounds like something right out of the Babylon
| Bee. I really don't envy the folks at the Bee - it's _hard_
| to make up satire that 's weirder and more outrageous than
| the actual truth!
| afterburner wrote:
| That article only mentions 2000 year old sculptures, not 8000,
| so maybe that one just hasn't been as weather worn yet.
| behnamoh wrote:
| Or maybe previous dating was not correct.
| simonh wrote:
| It sounds like you only skim read the first paragraph.
|
| The article says they were thought to be 2000 years old but
| have recently been found to be 6000 years older than that.
| The second paragraph makes the new dating range explicit.
| afterburner wrote:
| It sounds like you didn't read the comment I was actually
| replying to. It links to this article, different from OP,
| that does not mention what you claim it mentions:
| https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/MAGAZINE-2-000-year-
| old-...
| mcguire wrote:
| According to the Smithsonian article, that was the original
| dating for the camels. The continuing work pushed the date
| back to 7000-8000.
| aaron695 wrote:
| Also very short. Smaller than a human in height -
|
| https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2017.221
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/l3Vmm
|
| http://web.archive.org/web/20210916005143/https://www.haaret...
| 0xdeadb00f wrote:
| Thank you!
| kergonath wrote:
| It's annoying that an article with this title has such a poor
| picture, even though much better ones are a quick search away.
| They talk about mind-boggling realism, but you would not
| believe it just from this photo. Thanks for the link!
| dublin wrote:
| Camel? Or Star Wars walker machine? Inquiring minds want to
| know... :-)
| masklinn wrote:
| The very sloped back and back legs reveal they're camels not
| AT-AT: the hind slope of the AT-AT is very shallow and its
| leg joint does not bend back.
| photon-torpedo wrote:
| Can't see any long neck, so my vote goes to the Star Wars
| walker.
| peter_retief wrote:
| I never realized that camels originated in the Americas In
| contrast to popular wisdom, the camel did not originate in the
| Sahel or Levant. They apparently evolved in North America
| around 45 million years ago. From there they spread to South
| America (becoming alpacas, llamas and so on), Asia, and Africa
| some time in the Pleistocene, say the archaeologists. That
| isn't saying much, as the Pleistocene spans about 2.5 million
| years to 11,000 years ago.
|
| Anyway, based on camel remains, it seems the splay-footed
| quadrupeds reached Arabia in the Holocene, at least 7,000 years
| ago. (Camels are believed to have reached ancient Israel only
| about 3,000 years ago.)
| duxup wrote:
| I wonder how many places have the geology for these massive
| stone walls that can be carved and ... folks saw it and thought
| "Man we should make this really big sculpture!".
|
| My imagination makes me think that it's a pretty obvious thing
| to do for any number of reasons and that there have been quite
| a few that have been lost to time.
| delecti wrote:
| As evidenced by the amount of grafitti in public places,
| people just really like leaving their mark wherever they can.
| There's grafitti in ancient ruins that (aside from the
| language) could be mistaken for grafitti in a bathroom stall.
| People are just gonna people.
| duxup wrote:
| I recall a note left on a piece of Greek pottery that said
| something like "<name1> made this and I bet <name2> can't
| do any better."
|
| Wonderful slice of some potter rivalry from long long ago
| ;)
| rbalicki wrote:
| There's a lot of bawdy graffiti that was discovered in
| Pompeii: https://kashgar.com.au/blogs/history/the-bawdy-
| graffiti-of-p...
| delecti wrote:
| This is exactly the example I was trying to remember. I
| love things like this because it helps take the past off
| a pedestal. We've been the same raunchy species from the
| beginning.
| pizzaknife wrote:
| this is hilarious and incredibly interesting, thanks for
| the link!
| irrational wrote:
| This is exactly why I doubt all the expert opinions on cave
| art. "This undoubtedly had ritual significance." BS. It was
| probably just some teenagers screwing around.
| delecti wrote:
| I wouldn't go too far in the opposite direction though.
| Teenagers screwing around is more likely to be lewd
| carvings than life-size carvings of a camel.
|
| A rule of thumb I've heard is that "ritual significance"
| is code for either "we have no idea" or "probably a sex
| toy", depending on context. In cases like this, I think
| the default assumption should be "probably art".
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| "ritual" is a pretty general term that doesn't quite
| match its colloquial meaning and generally doesn't have
| anything to do with sex toys. Imagine you find an old PCB
| that you weren't quite sure the purpose of. Is it unfair
| to call it "electronic" when there's a more specific term
| that could be applied if you knew what its purpose was?
| The same objection applies equally to "art".
| mannerheim wrote:
| There is runic Old Norse graffiti in the Hagia Sophia that
| probably originally said something along the lines of 'so-
| and-so wrote this': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runic_ins
| criptions_in_Hagia_So...
| RandomWorker wrote:
| I find it amazing that early humans tended to make art of animals
| not humans. Like the cave paintings in France. It seems that
| early humans put the animals front and Center at some point.
| [deleted]
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| They had more impact on human lives.
|
| Hunter-gatherer groups tend to be small and disparate. They
| don't really have much impact on each other.
|
| But they deal with animals, on a daily.
|
| It's not just primitive societies, either. Modern tribal groups
| tend to concentrate on animals and crops.
|
| When your very survival depends on knowing as much as possible
| about prey and draft animals, weather, etc., these topics
| occupy your attention.
|
| When they depicted other humans, it was often about conflict.
|
| We may think of these as "quaint" beliefs, but these folks took
| this stuff _seriously_. Their survival depended on it.
| toyg wrote:
| _> They had more impact on human lives._
|
| Yeah, we should remember also that permanent or periodic
| nomadism was the norm on large swaths of the planet. Animals
| were obviously key to move significant numbers of people
| (women, children...), as well as to produce food on the go.
| If the camel-god says no, you're stuck in the middle of the
| desert, so you better keep him happy.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Also, camels are very smart, and bad-tempered:
| https://wiki.lspace.org/You_Bastard
| swader999 wrote:
| My cat is always nice to me. I understand these ancients.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Using your magical paint to steal my soul and trap it in rock?
| No thank you! That's a quick way to get yourself bludgeoned.
| Stick to animals please.
| woko wrote:
| Here are a few examples of human figures from 30,000 years ago
| [1], and 35,000 to 40,000 years ago [2, 3]. For comparison, the
| eroded camel sculptures are from 8,000 years ago at best.
|
| Moreover, beware of possible biases which could explain what we
| see today: there is a difference between what we observe and
| what was. Remember for instance the destruction of the Buddhas
| of Bamiyan [4], which happened less than 1,500 years after they
| were built. It is extremely unlikely that a work of art
| survives for 40,000 years, and some may be more likely to be
| destroyed than others, depending on location, weather,
| traditions, history, etc.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Galgenberg
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Hohle_Fels
|
| [3]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adorant_from_the_Gei%C3%9Fenkl...
|
| [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Humans tend to have problems with other humans and will destroy
| images or propaganda. Nobody really hates camels enough.
| papandada wrote:
| And maybe a few fertile/pregnant women.
| anonAndOn wrote:
| "Camel Rock" is a pretty good marketing asset. If it wasn't
| some sort of religious icon, maybe it was an early tourist trap
| (or both)?
| [deleted]
| OJFord wrote:
| The linked initial (2018) find article has more convincing
| photos, in my opinion:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/science/camels-sculptures...
|
| Submission from the time, not really discussed (just to save you
| the search): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16391610
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| Go to his people. It will make more sense.
| kossTKR wrote:
| Thanks! This picture is so much better - really shows the scale
| and the detail.
|
| My intuitions and my knowledge of statistics hints that there's
| really no reason much, much older somewhat advanced "societies"
| couldn't have existed but have just not been excavated or have
| vanished because of porous materials.
|
| Does anyone know of any good podcasts / books that delves into
| topics like this?
|
| I've always found fringe theories of lost or "hyper-ancient"
| civilisations fascinating.
| rscoots wrote:
| If you're looking for lost and re-found civilizations, maybe
| look into the archeological history of Troy, or maybe the
| Olmec culture of south America. (There are many)
|
| My favorite though is this documentary series on YouTube. The
| 2nd installment is especially good. Highly recommend:
|
| https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwB8gn3XsXHiHDhY3e8XsavyS.
| ..
| yesbabyyes wrote:
| > Does anyone know of any good podcasts / books that delves
| into topics like this?
|
| "Civilization is always older than we think; and under
| whatever sod we tread are the bones of men and women who also
| worked and loved, wrote songs and made beautiful things, but
| whose names and very being have been lost in the careless
| flow of time." - Will Durant
|
| While I have only read his "The Greatest Minds and Ideas of
| All Time", his wife Ariel Durant and him co-wrote an 11
| volume "biography" of civilization called "The Story of
| Civilization", which I believe deals with such things.
| roughly wrote:
| It's not so much about ancient civilizations, but Michael
| Mann's 1491 does a spectacular job expanding on the size and
| complexity of the civilizations of the Americas, which has
| only really become clear in the last couple decades.
|
| I also really liked this article, which talks about the
| difficulty of finding evidence of even large civilizations
| after enough time:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/are-
| we-e...
| pomian wrote:
| Maybe you know Dan Carlin? His Hardcore History podcasts are
| amazing. History how it should be. In this case try the King
| of King, series. Although almost all of his podcasts are
| spellbinding and thoughtful. For all ages too. Excellent for
| road trips. https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-
| series/
| newbamboo wrote:
| Reminds me of the norm Macdonald joke about joe camel.
| clustrfunk wrote:
| Ayee I'm Saudi but too drunk to actually drop a meaningful
| comment. I hope it's something good about my country, otherwise
| fuck that shit
| sharmin123 wrote:
| Your phone can never be hacked? Think again:
| https://www.hackerslist.co/your-phone-can-never-be-hacked-th...
| snambi wrote:
| Sorry, I couldn't find the camels despite my best imagination.
| [deleted]
| BeautifulWorld wrote:
| Not older than the Bosnian Pyramid.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| The paper isn't on Sci-Hub yet... Does anyone have access?
| varenc wrote:
| I found it here:
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354598853_Life-size...
|
| direct link: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yamandu-
| Hilbert/publica...
| varenc wrote:
| > Additionally, a stone mason found no signs of pottery or the
| use of metal tools at the site.
|
| So interesting that creators of this lacked pottery! From the
| full paper [1], apparently pottery didn't arrive in northern
| Arabia until the Bronze age so absence of pottery is taken as
| more evidence of an older origin.
|
| [1]: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yamandu-
| Hilbert/publica...
| smoyer wrote:
| Imagine how much more creative we'd tend to be if we didn't have
| television and Internet distractions! What do you do after a long
| day of herding livestock? Take your chert, grab a drink and carve
| some camels!
| sudhirj wrote:
| What exactly are we being distracted by on the internet and
| television? The flourishing unbridled creativity of millions of
| people like us, far more than ever before in history, no?
| tgv wrote:
| The day archeologists declare they've excavated a meme that's
| "older than the tiktok", you'll be proven right.
| notriskfree wrote:
| If people were the same back then:- Most people hung out and
| watched the Camels being carved, many watched others
| `reacting` to the Camel carvings, and a few critiqued the
| Carvings. Only a few did the carving.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| My kids (10yo, 9yo, 8yo) got grounded for a week for not
| listening and misbehaving, with no TV or tablets... and the
| amount of bickering and complaining about each other dropped
| like a rock because there's nothing to fight over.
| tokai wrote:
| Preposterous. Creativity has never been more unbounded and
| flourishing than it is now.
| Razengan wrote:
| "B-but it's not the sort of creativity I like to see, so no
| creativity is happening."
| smoyer wrote:
| I'd agreed that's true for a small percentage of the
| population and that the rest are consumers. For these
| projects, you probably had a "visionary" but it's stated that
| the creations were likely a community effort and maintained
| over time.
| adventured wrote:
| > I'd agreed that's true for a small percentage of the
| population and that the rest are consumers.
|
| That's as good as it's ever going to get. The rest will
| always be consumers.
| bodge5000 wrote:
| Community projects are still a thing, they're just not as
| grandiose, partially to do with different priorities and
| restrictions (making giant rock carvings is rarely top of
| peoples agendas, nor top of the local councils approvals),
| and partially due to the fact that they look lesser due to
| all the other amazing things people are doing on the
| internet.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > I'd agreed that's true for a small percentage of the
| population and that the rest are consumers.
|
| This has likely been the case throughout history.
|
| "Look, Bob's useless at hunting, but those cave paintings
| are pretty neat. Let him stay home."
| notriskfree wrote:
| Boom Boom
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| This headline seems odd. It feels like it's implying that carving
| a life size camel into rock is more technologically sophisticated
| than assembling Stonehenge or the pyramids and therefore we
| should be surprised.
|
| I get that they thought they were newer, and now think they are
| older, still strange headline to lead with.
| arbitrage wrote:
| the headline says 'older'. the implication that it somehow
| implies something more subversive is coming from your own
| expectations.
| kortex wrote:
| I just read it as "what are some old things made of rock that
| people know about, to use as a reference frame?"
|
| It's the pineapple/washing machine/stonehenge unit system. Not
| to be confused with firkin/furlong/fortnight.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FFF_system
| Oarch wrote:
| Not to be a pedant, but are these really life-size? It's hard to
| get a sense of scale from the images but they look significantly
| larger than life size.
| recursive wrote:
| Maybe camels used to be much bigger?
| Zenst wrote:
| Whilst these may seem old, for some perspective - statues have
| been dated back to 35-40k years old.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-man
|
| So one wonders what is still to be found, what was lost to sea
| level changes or other climate erosion over time. But the level
| of craftsmanship old times long past still amazes me as the
| skills to achieve that was far more common in those times as a
| percentage of the populous than it is today. Which as tools
| developed, we have shifted that level of hand craftsmanship
| towards expensive art today.
|
| Equally, one wonders what structures we build today would still
| be around in an equally period of time - building wise, not many
| that spring to mind and even then, not sure how the ravages of
| time would effect them. Certainly a large exercise but I wonder
| if anybody has done any climate modelling for that kind of
| duration and how today's monuments around the world would endure.
| Makes you wonder what would be left as even plastics would break
| down after 500 years - let alone 8,000 or 40,000 years from now.
| mef wrote:
| location of site https://goo.gl/maps/gVb5wbKBn44CKdpX9
| ourcat wrote:
| Thank you. That's got some much better photos. I have to say, I
| wasn't that convinced by the one used in the Smithsonian
| article.
| teleforce wrote:
| The northern part of saudi Arabia is actually part of the Fertile
| Crescent also known as 'The Cradle of Civilization' extending
| from Iraq where human first started cultivating and herding
| animals [1]. Yes it's now mostly desert but it used to be greener
| than it's today.
|
| This is an excellent documentary where teams of archeological
| experts from around the world trying to unravel the mystery of
| one of the earliest man made monuments in northern Saudi Arabia
| [2].
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertile_Crescent
|
| [2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8A0LpX7_yM
| ducktective wrote:
| If the climate there was different 8k years ago, why did they
| depict camels which dwell deserts and hot climates?
| patall wrote:
| The climate wasn't that different, just a little wetter. Also
| we don't know what wild dromedaries were like, given that
| they are extinct for 2000 years now.
|
| And the depicted ones were almost certainly wild, given that
| dromedaries were domesticated only 4000 years ago, well past
| when the first pyramids were build.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| You should know that camels (like horses) originally evolved
| in North America, in far north latitudes. They're not from
| the desert originally, they're from the cold northern icy
| tundra. So needless to say they're very adaptable.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| It would have still been hot and relatively arid, just less
| so. These camels are native to all of North Africa, Arabia,
| and the middle east. There's a lot of different environments
| in that range.
| ducktective wrote:
| The theory parent is mentioning, doesn't just talk about
| "less hot and less arid" but a lush green and very
| favorable for agriculture.
|
| If these people went as far as to carve camels in stones,
| that would mean these animals were prevalent in their areas
| and way of life which is in direct conflict with assuming
| their land were anything but hot and arid.
|
| I have heard of the theory about different climate of Egypt
| and Iraq in ancient times. It seems logical that
| civilization should have started in a climate supportive
| for mass agriculture.
|
| It's depressing when we think of earth's climate change
| over a time scale unimaginable for humans. The theory
| implies (at least for me) that the decline of quality of
| life in ME/NorthAfrica has more to do with a random
| external change not in control of insignificant humans.
| 8note wrote:
| Why not both? More lush by the rivers, and still arid
| away from water.
|
| But they could still only have camels as their pack
| animals, since that's all they'd domesticated. It's not
| like camels will die in non-arid locations
| mannerheim wrote:
| Arizona is very hot, very arid, and also very favourable
| for agriculture, with significant production of lettuce
| and cotton. As long as you can make sure your crops get
| water through irrigation (which ancient Mesopotamians
| were very skilled at), your crops will thrive. In fact,
| the heat and sunlight actually provide a bit of an
| advantage.
|
| However, a number of factors eventually led to the
| collapse of the civilisations in the fertile crescent.
| One factor has been the region getting warmer and drier,
| which poses a challenge even with irrigation. As an
| example of how different the climate is now from what it
| was then, Uruk used to be on a channel of the Euphrates,
| but now that riverbed is completely dried up. Meanwhile,
| Ur was once a coastal city, but is now ten miles inland.
|
| Another factor for the collapse of these civilisations is
| that the process of irrigation accumulated salt in the
| soil. The very process that made complex civilisation
| possible in this part of the world eventually contributed
| to its end.
|
| I recommend the Fall of Civilizations podcast for more on
| this and other societies:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2lJUOv0hLA
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Semi-arid is perfectly compatible with agriculture. In
| fact, many of the earliest sites for agriculture around
| the world are found in arid or semi-arid environments.
| I'd suggest reading Dennell's paper on the deserts of
| Asia.
|
| https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2012.12.002
| cbHXBY1D wrote:
| In the book, _The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the
| End of an Empire_ , the author goes over Ptolemy's
| historical records of rain in Alexandria and compares it
| to today. In short, Alexandria used to get continual rain
| throughout the year whereas today it gets rain from
| October to March and then not much else. I believe it's
| in chapter 2 if anyone wants to look at the charts on the
| Amazon preview.
| kevinkeller wrote:
| Speaking of different climate in North Africa/Middle
| East: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_humid_period
|
| As recently as 5,000 years ago, it was a much wetter
| place.
| arbitrage wrote:
| because it's all just a big trick to fool you specifically.
|
| checkMATE science /s
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