https://phys.org/news/2017-04-ancient-stone-pillars-clues-co...
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2128512-ancient-carving...
Science might just have found the cause for the flood myth that is present in most cultures around the world.
That said, the entire site is of interest to those interested in flood myths. It was an active site during the period when climactic disasters and floods were happening. Ice melted. Seas rose. The nearby black sea was expanding, and eventually spilled into the aegean. This is also (intriguingly) the date plato gave for atlantis' destruction.
In Egypt the dakhleh oasis has evidence of habitation for 200,000 years. I don't know if what's meant by habitation means it's always been human or generally hominid. But I think 200,000 years is quite recent for any hominids other than what we became to be around.
The other interesting thing is the situation of the San indigenous people of southern Africa region. They are supposedly a very old culture living in the area well over 100,000 years and even their DNA is unique compared to other African peoples. It's odd to think the Bantu, Zulu etc. are the "invaders" of the region, the new people in the area.
There was also a neanderthal population that seems to have succeeded and older sapien population, which is unusual in the record.
It's very old people stomping grounds, for pretty much any definition of people. Pretty much anything from early homo erectus to early scholars has a token ancestor there.
http://www.astonishinglegends.com/al-podcasts/2018/5/26/ep-1...
http://www.astonishinglegends.com/al-podcasts/2018/06/10/ep-...
http://www.astonishinglegends.com/al-podcasts/2018/06/17/ep-...
Kathleen Kenyon’s findings seem to match the events described in the Bible.
Edit: OK, you'd need to say years ago but still, is this another part of the dropping the AD and BC tendency?
We use a lot more acronyms these days, generally. The better ones can be guessed from context. I personally don't mind the BC/AD, for iron age and later. It's actually convenient that year 0 corresponds roughly to the beginning of Rome's height.
OK, I'd never it before (had to google it).
AD/BC does the job ok for classical history and onwards. Now that "history" is extending back before the bronze age and even to these really early dates...we obviously need a new stamp.
Why is including values of our time bad, while honouring some 2018ya lord good?
I didn't say that was bad, I just figured if you wanted to say 15k years ago you could say 15k years ago instead of making up another acronym, ago isn't a long word. Also I don't necessarily think you have to date from the supposed birthdate of the Jesus Christ. But since we have, why not leave it as is? Why are we being subjected to CE and BCE? It would be quite a message-laden decision if some institutions had a policy of NOT referring to our numbers as Arabic numerals, for instance.
Over the last couple of decades, this 10k-15k ybp period has gotten a lot more interesting. Especially to us romantics, who always want origins to be more ancient and mysterious. The Natufian Culture now has a lot of sites. Everything from proof of a predominantly hunter gatherer diet to a full scale sedentary city, 9,000 year old Jericho. We even know they particularly enjoyed eating cat, and may have domesticated them for food.
Even more remarkable is the progress in southeastern Turkey. Gobleki Tepeh is a find on such a scale that it challenges archeologists to re-narrate the neolithic revolution. Many think that it reverses the old narrative: Agriculture lead to caloric surpluses, permanent settlements, cities, organised religions, kings, advanced art, complex mythology... Maybe an organised religion crowned the first god-kings, designated specialised societal roles, built temples, then cities, and invented agriculture to support them.
Near Gobleki Tepeh is Catal Huyuk, a residential "city" archeologically and temporally similar Jericho. It appears to have been built after Gobleki Tepeh, a more "ritualistic" site. Perhaps archeologists should be looking for ancient temple sites, predating Jericho.
Perhaps the Egyptian pattern is to be expected. First, giant ritualistic projects are undertaken. Politics appears to be simple, the king is a god. People do what he says. Complexity comes later. Maybe this is normal. Maybe modes of production follow from modes of culture, to put it in 19th century terms.
Egypt's old kingdom were the the great builders. Out of "nowhere" they suddenly take on massive works, million man-year projects. The middle & new kingdoms were more advanced politically, agriculturally, economically & militarily. But, the scale of ritualistic sites declined. They still had great temples, and fine art keeps progressing. Literature proliferates. Law advances. But, the amount of labour dedicated to pure ritual seems to peak near the "beginning."
It is a fascinating period. The middle east definitely has its roots here. Keep up the good work archeologists. We appreciate it, us spectators.