Crackpot theory? It's a straightforward inference from human behavioral modernity, and the fact that some places have always been resource-rich enough to allow for at least some effort to be spent on things other than brute survival. Those who suppose the contrary as a default are merely transporting our naïve, self-serving stereotypes about "savage" societies to the very far past.

There's two different ways to interpret the GP post. Using the term "civilization" instead of "sophisticated societies", the first is that civilization == the traditional childe definition. The academic timelines around that sort of stuff are well-established and people like graham Hancock do push ideas best described as crackpot about these sorts of societies existing before the LGM.

But there's also the redefinitional arguments that the Childe definition of civilization is wrong. That's the vein you're working in and where books like Dawn of Everything are arguing from. They're much more agreeable to modern archaeologists and most wouldn't disagree too strongly (if at all).

Wengrow has a good opinion piece on this dichotomy in [1].

[1] https://aeon.co/ideas/a-history-of-true-civilisation-is-not-...

AIUI, Childe proposed a number of criteria for civilization, all of them correlating one way or another with 'increasingly complex society'. Some of those we'll never know if the very ancient past had them (and I think even Graham Hancock would acknowledge this), the others are pretty much in line with the article you link to. So I'm not sure how much genuine disagreement is involved, as opposed to scholars holding on to untenable viewpoints and neglecting to put two and two together.

It's a bit fuzzier. The popular model prior to Childe was Lewis Morgan's three stage Savagery->Barbarism->Civilization model. When Childe published his famous paper [1] laying out the criteria, he acknowledged Morgan (though I'm not sure it's cited in the paper itself) and was intentionally providing standardized criteria to recognize the last stage. Childe himself preferred the terminology of "city" and later archaeologists adopted the phrase "state", but really these are all the same broad concept with slightly different connotations.

But aside from a few exceptions (people at USYD, Michael Smith), Childe's definitions are increasingly disagreeable to archaeologists. Most of the newer generations, myself included, find anti-evolutionist arguments significantly more persuasive and even those that don't aren't big fans of the original formulation of Childe's ideas.

[1] http://www.jstor.org/stable/40102108

So your point is that the disagreeable connotations and 'evolutionist' viewpoint is something Childe might have picked up from Morgan, and that what scholarship is finding out now is that complex societies might not necessarily have been all that state-like, or highly unequal/hierarchical?

This has nothing to do with the recent Netflix show, which I have never seen

Ah yes, gatekeeping and name calling. The cornerstone of "established" science everywhere. There is no need to denigrate Graham Hancock's hypothesis as "crackpot" and it certainly isn't a proper theory. Science welcomes all ideas only to discard them with proof to the contrary. Unfortunately, much of archeology is inference not proven fact. The farther back we go the more inference and less fact we have. There is certainly a possibility that an advanced Pleistocene civilization existed and was destroyed by a cosmic impact. To dismiss these ideas as "crackpot" is one of the most unscientific claims I regularly encounter.

We know there are human built megalithic structures that are dated at the end of the Pleistocene. We know that the Pleistocene ended abruptly with all North American megafauna perishing and immense amounts of meltwater entering the oceans. We don't know if there were a bunch of distributed civilizations with similar technology levels or if there was a global civilization that shared knowledge before or after cataclysm. We also don't know what caused the end of the Pleistocene. This is the realm of hypothesis on all sides.

There’s certainly no harm in indulging in wild, unfounded recreational speculation, as long as one is clear that’s what’s happening. Usually that’s not what going on with people who allude darkly to “[unspecified] political motivations for controlling the narrative around evolution and the birth of civilization”

There is a very recent analysis of Hancock's "Ancient Apocalypse" series. Well worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=341Lv8JLLV4 by Stefan Milo. Case in point: Hancock presents _zero_ evidence.

It's worth noting that falsificationism really only applies to experimental sciences like physics and chemistry. The "historical sciences" like geology, paleontology, and archaeology don't work that way because of the arrow of time. I'd recommend Cleland's original [1] or most recent paper [2] on this topic.

The upside is that we can differentiate between the quality of various competing hypotheses in a reasoned way. That's how we can say that the traditional academic narratives are epistemologically better than e.g. Tolkien's Silmarillion.

[1] https://doi.org/10.1130/0091-7613(2001)029<0987:HSESAT>2.0.C...

[2] http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/41241902

Your second link is bad

Corrected.

Falsification has happened plenty of times in historical and archaeological research. You could posit that Mohenjo Daro and Ur had no contact right up until trade goods showed up.

In recent memory just about everyone was dead certain that monumental architecture happened only where there was agriculture. And, that once a people took up agriculture, they kept at it. And, that humans got to the Americas no more than 15,000 years ago.

That is not in fact how science works.

Science only welcomes new ideas when they offer a possible solution to a problem with the existing paradigms. For this type of theory, if you had data showing the earliest known societies were unusually advanced, or if you had artifacts that suggest more wide spread early societies, these would be facts wanting an explanation.

You can't just say something like "maybe all language was singing until 20,000 years ago" and claim it's scientific until proven false.

Occam's razor is also a thing. If you can explain the exact same facts with a theory that involves fewer or more general assumptions, that also counts.

You cant say the contrary either. Theres not enough evidence either way due to the sands of time.

I haven't seen the new documentary, but I read one of Hancock's books years ago. His book Underworld, which is about how evidence of ancient civilizations is underwater as the coastline has changed dramatically over the last few thousands of years. I think he draws way too many conclusions from way too little evidence, but that premise itself has always struck me as incredibly plausible. The issue is that a lot of the evidence is underwater now, and therefore hard to get to. But that doesn't really mean we shouldn't be looking for it though, right? Otherwise we're like the drunk looking for his keys under the street light because its easier, not because he dropped them there.

As for the academy, Thomas Kuhn wrote "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", where he argues that most paradigm shifts happen in revolutionary leaps instead of incremental improvements. We've been pushing back the timelines of human expansion for a long time. It was impossible and just fables that Vikings were on North America, until it wasn't for example.

Hancock is very questionable in motives and methods (talks a lot about how he is suppressed rather than what he thinks is true)

But it’s true that narratives around past civilizations are controlled for political reasons

Eg in China the winners want to paint the picture that the way they govern is inevitable and mandated, when really there was a lot of diversity, experimentation, and violence

Including matriarchal societies!!

I recommend reading Dawn of Everything by graeber and wengrow for peer reviewed info on past, ignored, alternative civilizations

It does have an axe to grind but it’s a welcome contrast and asks good questions

You don’t need to invoke hypothetical pre ice age societies for any of this

However the book does give a good perspective on how much of history we simply don’t know, which leaves room for speculators like Hancock

FWIW, I wasn't that impressed with "Dawn of Everything", I wish it had more data and less polemic. (I think the polemical argument would have been stronger if, paradoxically, it had been weaker.)

>I wish it had more data I mean that really seems to be the wish, and the problem, with a lot of historical and archaeological research.

Its bibliography is very, very large. You can root around in there for a lifetime. I doubt you would find anything to contradict him.

That's kind of my point: there's so much fascinating and important work going on right now that the book just sort of gestures at in the rush to make their political points. FWIW, I'm sympathetic to their arguments, but I'd like to see them more well-supported (than they were in that book, IMO.)

I will only note that the book is quite large, and that David Graeber has, tragically, left us.

FWIW, I want to make it clear that I'm not criticizing David Graeber. I'm not an anarchist myself, but I very much value and respect his work.

Also, when I used "their" above I meant David Graeber and the co-author of the book David Wengrow.

While I'm at it, I should mention that when I called GH a "kook" in the other thread, I also meant it in a "takes one to know one" kind of a way. To wit: I'm a kook (by many measures, not my own) too. E.g. I believe Bigfoot is real, that they are hominids, and that they may well be as intelligent as H. sapiens or more so. On alternate Tuesdays I believe the Earth is hollow, just to keep my brain in shape.

Cheers, and well met.

Yeah my recommendation isn't because I think it's a fair and balanced viewpoint, but that it provides a much-needed perspective. It shouldn't be the ONLY book you read about such issues. I also like Guns, Germs, and Steel, which the authors have criticized (mostly respectfully).

There are many things about human history that we simply don't know, and triangulating between experts with very different viewpoints is a good way to get closer to the truth, or at least make you think.

A key point is that human history is hundreds of thousands of years long, and for many periods of hundreds/thousands of years, we only have 1 or 2 artifacts. And the world is very big. Entire civilizations with complex social structures have come and gone with little trace, and many of them lasted longer than the United States or the modern governments of Russia or China. (Obviously 20th century growth rates make that comparison hard, but it's still worth thinking about)

Also, I would say that DoE is better at criticism than at making claims, or providing a concrete path toward more egalitarian societies. It's responding somewhat to "big history" books, so it's probably better to read those first.

I'm sympathetic to the arguments presented in the book, my complaint is that it's "preaching to the choir" too much. I think it would be a stronger book if it was less polemical.

I think it's fascinating and important that Native lifestyles were preferable to European/American lifestyles. That extended quote from Franklin raises some very salient questions, IMO.

You're completely right, but I also want to caution (you mention this too) readers that Graeber himself has a strong perspective. When evaluating historical narratives, it's essential to dig into sources closer to primary sources when possible. There's too much at stake for most modern states for there not to be controversy.

This sort of tension exists for foundational histories in many, many cultures. South Asia's existing religious tension motivates people to evaluate and reevaluate historical events trying to show one or another religiously-aligned power as good or bad. Western history probably has it the least because it's well-preserved, well-studied, and has many copies of primary sources lying around which allows lots of people to cast critical eyes upon an analysis.

It depends on what advanced means.

Humans appeared 160-250,000 years ago. We spread to Australia 45,000 years ago and to the Americas 15,000 years ago. We have evidence of agriculture in Turkey from about 9,000 years ago.

Given the ability to travel for and wide, it seems weird that humans wouldn’t have sophisticated societies. Evidence is no doubt wiped out by time and prime land was flooded as the ice age ended.

The global population was much lower in those days. I doubt there were large cities or magical technology. But I’m sure you had tribal societies with broad reach and social structures.

We have a bias to assume that people in the distant past were quaint or unable to handle basic concepts. We benefit from standing on the shoulders of giants, but our forebearers were just as smart as we are. We have better tools.