XPost: talk.politics.misc, alt.archeology, alt.science   
   XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   From: rotflol2@hotmail.com   
      
   ["Followup-To:" header set to talk.politics.misc.]   
   On 2025-04-11, Siri Cruz wrote:   
   > On 10/4/25 22:55, c186282 wrote:   
   >> Some TV idiots like to claim 'aliens' or 'god-like beings'   
   >> were responsible. Kinda doubt it. The old structures are   
   >> damned good, but not 'alien civ' sophisticated. Hey, humans   
   >> are CLEVER - don't necessarily NEED 'aliens'.   
   >>   
   >> HOW some of these things were built, STILL a big mystery   
   >> however ... it'd be super-difficult even with modern   
   >> methods/machines.   
   >>   
   >> Maybe the oldest thing anyone wants to ADMIT to are   
   >> the Gobekli Tepe 'temples' ... WAY better than   
   >> Stonehenge. 10-12000 years old. Was NOT so long ago   
   >   
   > Humans require 2000 to 3000 calories a day. Before agriculture   
   > that food to be gatherred/hunted (no significant food storage)   
   > each day. Because everything had to be carried from camp to camp,   
   > the technology was inefficient.   
   >   
   > This meant after a big kill the family could loll around a few   
   > days telling stories and crafting more artistic arrowheads. Then   
   > on to the next camp getting hungrier and hungrier until the next   
   > big kill.   
   >   
   > Our ancestors had long distance trade, fine arts, rocking hot   
   > music nobody can hear today, but they had trouble getting enough   
   > calories in one place for a sustained time to survive as well   
   > spend calories carving and moving big chunks of rock. We were   
   > thinking deep thoughts about how the universe worked. Sometimes   
   > the effort was deemed worthwhile.   
   >   
   > The surprising thing about Gobekli Tepe is not the intellect,   
   > artistry, and skill. Humans be smart. The surprise is the degree   
   > of social engineering that fed it.   
   >   
   > There is an argument about the age of the Sphinx. The argument of   
   > archaeologists against the geologists is at the time of proposed   
   > construction there is no evidence of an economy that could   
   > sustain the work. Then Gobekli showed up. It is too far from the   
   > Nile to prove anything, but it did show hunter gatherrers could   
   > organise and feed large communal projects.   
   >   
      
   I think part of our modern day assumption, that humans back then were   
   not as sophisticated as they actually were, was due to us looking for   
   evidence for civilisation where we thought we would find it. Like   
   looking for your keys under the street lamp, not because that is where   
   they last where, because that is where the light was best. Sea levels   
   have changed, but it was always easier to excavate on land, where we   
   found previous artefacts and evidence.   
      
   Not much survives of the past, and our understanding is based on what we   
   have been able to uncover, which I think is a fraction of what existed.   
   Take for example the antikythera mechanism. There must have been more   
   than one, or at least, there must have been precursors, a technological   
   arc that leads to that. We just haven't found it.   
      
   But then, look today. You'll see iPhones and sleek Apple laptops. Its   
   very, very difficult to stumble across older computers now. How many   
   Millennial's have seen a 1980s microcomputer? Probably only in a   
   museum. These were ubiquitous, and now you can go years without seeing   
   one. If they disappear within a couple of decades, surely decades of   
   civilisation, and centuries after that would have erased so, so much.   
   Only stone remains. We see stone and assume that's all there was.   
   Books is another. Public libraries in the suburbs have few old books.   
      
   Methods of social organisation, if not written down AND uncovered, would   
   also be lost.   
      
   I think our view of history is therefore way off, because we've   
   constructed our view based on what survived, which perhaps, isn't enough   
   to go on after all.   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)   
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