re: Ancient Stone Carvings-Comet(s) Hitting Earth app.10,950 BC (p14, Shermer concedes...)

There is something to be said for why North America is slightly less advanced then other non-European/Asian countries.

I am inclined to lean towards the arability of the land factor but it is entirely possible that a natural event, be it an asteroid strike or a small eruption of Yellowstone or the like set back settlement of North America.

If I had to point to a killer of the buffalo in Europe I would lean to two suspects actually, us and our friendly neighbors (who we very likely fricked into nonexistence) the Neanderthals. Both groups were amazing hunters and Europe doesn't lend itself as well to the topography that favors buffalo herds.

Its still a very interesting point and one that it will take us some time to figure out though. Did we (and our hump buddies) wipe them out or did something else? We really don't know right now what did what but that is a good thing. It means we are still looking into possibilities.

I am inclined to agree with the genetic bottleneck theory though. Humans had it easy in Africa but a change of climate due to the rise of the Himalayas altered the rainfall to huge chunk of Africa. I'm not sure we got quite as close to extinction as some say, but I do think that convinced our early ancestors to move North.

Were we nearly extinct? No. I agree with you. I don't think so but I do think we were hard pressed enough we had to find new places to live and once we did the rest of the world was settled in short order.

God, just think of what early humans faced in Australia? Forty foot long super Komodo dragons, ten foot tall carnivorous kangaroos, and super sized salt water crocodiles.

Yet we settled there and spread from there to Pacific islands and New Zealand.

Now Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands) are poorly suited to developing large populations... Australia and New Zealand combined have a smaller population then Canada and 80% of that country is a frozen wasteland. So you can see why they did not develop particularly advanced cultures.

Though, for the record, what I have read about the Maori's on New Zealand leans towards them being quite a bit more advanced in some ways then their Australian cousins, possibly because New Zealand is stuffed to the gills with arable land.

So there are some questions about why North America came out the way it did. We just don't know right now.

Etymology is not as useful as many think it is. Language is always evolving and changing. Also, when two roots are placed together, the word itself often takes on a new meaning.

For example "dis" could be found in a multitude of semantic ranges, not just the range dealing with "apartness" It could also be used as a negation or to indicate something as bad. "Dis" in disaster most likely takes on the negative or pejorative sense, meaning a "bad star" or "ill-fated star." Since many ancient cultures practiced astrology, calamitous events were often equated with stars in bad positions.

With catastrophe, any correlation with "astro" is purely coincidental, as it is not found in either of the two roots. It's simply what happens when a prefix ends in "a" and the stem begins with "stro." Also the Greek word for star is not "astro" but "aster." Catastrophe has no linguistic association with stars.

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Civilization didn't form at Sumer, it evacuated to Sumer. It just moved north when the lower river valley was inundated.

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Are you familiar with the ancient site of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey? Göbekli Tepe is home to the most ancient temple structures ever discovered.

LINK

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The world’s oldest monuments may soon get an image makeover. A new project will promote and preserve Göbekli Tepe, home to the most ancient temple structures ever discovered.

Turkey hopes to eventually boost tourism at the site, which is in a region where tourism has declined because of the nearby Syrian conflict and refugee crisis.

Since excavations began in 1995, the site in southeastern Turkey has changed the way archaeologists think about the origins of civilization. Its circular structures, with their elaborately carved stones and distinctive, T-shaped pillars, are more than 12,000 years old—older than the invention of agriculture or even pottery.

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Here's the Wikipedia link which has some photos and more information about the ancient site.

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Layer III

Pillar 2 from Enclosure A (Layer III) with low reliefs of what are believed to be a bull, fox, and crane.
At this early stage of the site's history, circular compounds or temene first appear. They range from 10 to 30 metres in diameter. Their most notable feature is the presence of T-shaped limestone pillars evenly set within thick interior walls composed of unworked stone. Four such circular structures have been unearthed so far. Geophysical surveys indicate that there are 16 more, enclosing up to eight pillars each, amounting to nearly 200 pillars in all. The slabs were transported from bedrock pits located approximately 100 metres (330 ft) from the hilltop, with workers using flint points to cut through the limestone bedrock.[17]

Two taller pillars stand facing one another at the centre of each circle. Whether the circles were provided with a roof is uncertain. Stone benches designed for sitting are found in the interior.[18] Many of the pillars are decorated with abstract, enigmatic pictograms and carved animal reliefs. The pictograms may represent commonly understood sacred symbols, as known from Neolithic cave paintings elsewhere. The reliefs depict mammals such as lions, bulls, boars, foxes, gazelles and donkeys; snakes and other reptiles, arthropods such as insects and arachnids; and birds, particularly vultures. At the time the edifice was constructed, the surrounding country was likely to have been forested and capable of sustaining this variety of wildlife, before millennia of settlement and cultivation led to the near–Dust Bowl conditions prevalent today.[8] Vultures also feature prominently in the iconography of Çatalhöyük and Jericho. Professor of Archaeology Steven Mithen, suggests that in the early Neolithic culture of Anatolia and the Near East the deceased were deliberately exposed in order to be excarnated by vultures and other carrion birds. (The head of the deceased was sometimes removed and preserved — possibly a sign of ancestor worship.)[19] This, then, would represent an early form of sky burial, as still practiced by Tibetan Buddhists and by Zoroastrians in Iran and India.[20]


Pillar 27 from Enclosure C (Layer III) with the sculpture of a predatory animal

Pillar with the sculpture of a fox
Few humanoid figures have appeared in the art at Göbekli Tepe. However, some of the T-shaped pillars have human arms carved on their lower half, suggesting that they are intended to represent the bodies of stylized humans (or perhaps gods). Loincloths also appear on the lower half of a few pillars. The horizontal stone member on top is thought to symbolize a human head. The pillars as a whole therefore have an anthropomorphic identity.[21] Whether they were intended to serve as surrogate worshippers, symbolize venerated ancestors, or represent supernatural, anthropomorphic beings is not clear.

At Pillar 27, Enclosure 2, Layer III, the discovery of a predator—perhaps a leopard—has excited particular interest for being carved almost in the round, hinting at a degree of artistic training and division of labor that is again surprising[original research?] in a hunter-gatherer society.[citation needed]

Some of the floors in this, the oldest, layer are made of terrazzo (burnt lime), others are bedrock from which pedestals to hold the large pair of central pillars were carved in high relief.[22] Radiocarbon dating places the construction of these early circles in the range of 9600 to 8800 BCE. Carbon dating suggests that (for reasons unknown) the enclosures were backfilled during the Stone Age.

Layer II
Creation of the circular enclosures in layer III later gave way to the construction of small rectangular rooms in layer II. Rectangular buildings make a more efficient use of space compared with circular structures. They are often associated with the emergence of the Neolithic.[23] But the T-shaped pillars, the main feature of the older enclosures, are also present here, indicating that the buildings of Layer II continued to serve as sanctuaries.[24] Layer II is assigned to Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB). The several adjoining rectangular, doorless and windowless rooms have floors of polished lime reminiscent of Roman terrazzo floors. Carbon dating has yielded dates between 8800 and 8000 BCE.[25] Several T-pillars up to 1.5 meters tall occupy the center of the rooms. A pair decorated with fierce-looking lions is responsible for the name "lion pillar building" by which their enclosure is known.[26]

Layer I
Layer I is the uppermost part of the hill. It is the shallowest, but accounts for the longest stretch of time. It consists of loose sediments caused by erosion and the virtually uninterrupted use of the hill for agricultural purposes since it ceased to operate as a cult center.

The site was deliberately backfilled sometime after 8000 BCE: the buildings were buried under debris, mostly flint gravel, stone tools, and animal bones that must have been imported from elsewhere.[27] In addition to Byblos points (weapon heads, i.e. arrowheads etc.) and numerous Nemrik points, Helwan-points and Aswad-points dominate the backfill's lithic inventory.

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DawgfaninCa

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Are you familiar with the ancient site of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey?

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I have seen a couple of documentaries that mention it - none devoted entirely to the site. I've always been interested in any of the ancient civilizations and creations.

Thanks for the links and information you posted. Learned more from that that from any of the videos I've seen on TV.

Here's more ruins of another ancient civilization which dated back 200,000 years ago that was recently discovered.


LINK

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They have always been there. People noticed them before. But no one could remember who made them -- or why? Until just recently, no one even knew how many there were. Now they are everywhere -- thousands -- no, hundreds of thousands of them! And the story they tell is the most important story of humanity. But it's one we might not be prepared to hear.

Something amazing has been discovered in an area of South Africa, about 150 miles inland, west of the port of Maputo. It is the remains of a huge metropolis that measures, in conservative estimates, about 1500 square miles. It's part of an even larger community that is about 10,000 square miles and appears to have been constructed -- are you ready -- from 160,000 to 200,000 BCE!

The image [top of page] is a close-up view of just a few hundred meters of the landscape taken from google-earth. The region is somewhat remote and the "circles" have often been encountered by local farmers who assumed they were made by some indigenous people in the past. But, oddly, no one ever bothered to inquire about who could have made them or how old they were.

This changed when researcher and author, Michael Tellinger, teamed up with Johan Heine, a local fireman and pilot who had been looking at these ruins from his years flying over the region. Heine had the unique advantage to see the number and extent of these strange stone foundations and knew that their significance was not being appreciated.

"When Johan first introduced me to the ancient stone ruins of southern Africa, I had no idea of the incredible discoveries we would make in the year or two that followed. The photographs, artifacts and evidence we have accumulated points unquestionably to a lost and never-before-seen civilization that predates all others -- not by just a few hundred years, or a few thousand years... but many thousands of years. These discoveries are so staggering that they will not be easily digested by the mainstream historical and archaeological fraternity, as we have already experienced. It will require a complete paradigm shift in how we view our human history. " -- Tellinger

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To see the number and scope of these ruins, I suggest that you use google-earth and start with the following coordinates:
Carolina -- 25 55' 53.28" S / 30 16' 13.13" E
Badplaas -- 25 47' 33.45" S / 30 40' 38.76" E
Waterval -- 25 38' 07.82" S / 30 21' 18.79" E
Machadodorp -- 25 39' 22.42" S / 30 17' 03.25" E

Then perform a low flying search inside the area formed by this rectangle. Simply Amazing!

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Are you familiar with the ancient site of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey?

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I prefer we call it Anatolia. Turkey didn't exist until after the Muslim invasions around the 11th century. Anatolia had a long rich history for thousands of years before the dirty Muslim invaders took over. Now they try and proclaim Anatolia's heritage as theirs.

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Now they try and proclaim Anatolia's heritage as theirs.

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You mean they didn't destroy all the artifacts and monuments there?

pal. You've become a great asset.
I am going to jump into this one. I have seen representations about reality which presume the laws that govern physics never changed. If you dont take that as a given you can solve more.
And write better stories.

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I'd need a lot more convincing that this dates back 200,000 years. I understand the stone alignment with Orion's belt argument, but that is far from foolproof evidence. Seems very far-fetched to me - unless we are talking about ancient aliens.

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I just discovered it a few minutes before I posted about it and did a quick read through the part about how they determined its date.

I find it interesting that if the date is correct then it supports Sitchin's translations of Sumerian writings which he claims say ancient aliens came to the Earth to mine gold and created humans to mine the gold instead of the "gods" who revolted against doing it.

I'll read it in detail when I get a chance and get back to you.

This thread has been fascinating. Thanks to all who contributed, I've got to follow up on a lot of this information a d do some further research. It really makes me question why I chose the career path I did