From: Blunderov (squooker@mweb.co.za)
Date: Sun Jan 27 2002 - 23:47:59 MST
Oldest city found? [Includes Hermit's Prehistoric Time-Line]L' Ermit Mon
2002/01/28 05:01
<snip>
[Hermit] I would suggest that this article makes a number of incorrect
assertions, and that its conclusions are seriously flawed. The oldest
(confirmed) "city building civilizations" are Black Sea and Indian based at
7500 BCE and Egyptian at 5000 BCE.
</snip>
I have found
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1768000/1768109.stm
accessed 2002/01/28.
[Blunderov}
While it seems that the jury is out on the conclusions to be drawn from this
discovery, it is so interesting that I will quote the whole article, but
please note that there is a very good picture of the layout of this city at
the url.
[quote]
Lost City could rewrite history.
By BBC News Online's Tom Housden.
The remains of what has been described as a huge lost city may force
historians and archaeologists to radically reconsider their view of ancient
human history.
Marine scientists say archaeological remains discovered 36 metres (120 feet)
underwater in the Gulf of Cambay off the western coast of India could be
over 9,000 years old.
The vast city - which is five miles long and 2 miles wide - is believed to
predate the oldest known remains in the subcontinent by more than 5000
years.
The site was discovered by chance last year by oceanographers from India's
National Institute of Ocean Technology conducting a survey of pollution.
Using side scan sonar - which sends a beam of sound waves down to the bottom
of the ocean - they identified huge geometrical structures at a depth of 120
feet.
Debris recovered from the site including construction material, pottery,
sections of walls, beads, sculpture and human bones and teeth has been
carbon dated and found to be nearly 9,500 years old.
Lost Civilization.
The city is believed to be even older than the ancient Harappan
civilisation, which dates back around 4,000 years.
Marine archaeologists have used a technique known as sub-bottom profiling to
show that the building remains stand on enormous foundations.
Author and film-maker Graham Hancock - who has written extensively on the
uncovering of ancient civilisations - told BBC News Online that the evidence
was compelling:
"The [oceanographers] found that they were dealing with two large blocks of
apparently man-made structures. Cities on this scale are not known in the
archaeological record until roughly 4,500 years ago when the first big
cities begin to appear in Mesopotamia. Nothing on the scale of the
underwater cities of Cambay is known. The first cities of the historical
period are as far away from these cities as we are today from the pyramids
of Egypt," he said.
Chronological Problem.
This, Mr Hancock told BBC News online, could have massive repercussions for
our view of the ancient world.
"There is a huge chronological problem in this discovery. It means that the
whole model of the origins of civilisation with which archaeologists have
been working will have to be remade from scratch," he said.
However archaeologist Justin Morris from the British Museum said more work
would need to be undertaken before the site could be categorically said to
belong to a 9,000 year old civilisation.
"Culturally speaking, in that part of the world there were no civilisations
prior to about 2,500 BC. What's happening before then mainly consisted of
small village settlements," he told BBC News Online.
Dr Morris added that artefacts from the site would need to be very carefully
analysed, and pointed out that the C14 carbon dating process is not without
its error margins.
It is believed that the area was submerged as ice caps melted at the end of
the last ice age 9-10,000 years ago.
Although the first signs of a significant find came eight months ago,
exploring the area has been extremely difficult because the remains lie in
highly treacherous waters, with strong currents and rip-tides.
The Indian Minister for Human Resources and Ocean Development said a group
had been formed to oversee further studies in the area.
We have to find out what happened then where and how this civilisation
vanished," he said.
[/quote]
Regards
+Blunderov
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