Old Epoxy ?

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It seems more and more like Neanderthal met his downfall not because he was a big dummy, but perhaps because he required a lot more calories to survive than early homo sapiens.
 
This article gives me hope for my own knife making.. . :)

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It may also be that the "tar" was developed as a byproduct in making a crude "lamp oil".

Birch bark has been used for centuries to produce a fuel oil. Continued baking will thicken the oil into a tar like substance that is almost impossible to remove.

I mean, to date the oldest civilizations with Cities are going back 30,000 years. I't not a stretch to think Neanderthals had knowledge of producing oils from their environment.
Cool post. I love pre-history.
 
Zombie411 said:
I mean, to date the oldest civilizations with Cities are going back 30,000 years.
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More like 11,500 from what we have found SO FAR, but point taken. Religious megalithic structures appeared in Turkey before "formal" agriculture and were likely the driving force. behind actually growing grains like emmer wheat instead of just harvesting its wild version. But think about this. People built that huge carved stone temple at Gobekli Tepe 12.500 years ago apparently before they had invented metal tools or pottery for that matter. One theory is that they chose that location in part, because emmer aka free food for the people building the structure, grew wild in great quantities in that area.
Around 11,500 years ago, you have evidence of the first serious town walls in Jericho. The town/city of Aleppo in Syria is 9000 years old, but there is evidence of people setting up camps there for like 5000 years before that. Prehistoric dates are fluid to say the least, because, well, they are prehistoric. ;) We still don't really know when people first came to the Americas. On one hand, we have the Clovis culture evidence from like 12,000 years ago, but recently we also have found evidence in the EASTERN US that may predate that by as much as 2000 years.
Where things get weird is when you try to figure out when "technology" morphed into "industry" I have read some stuff that says that when you look at stone tools from the late pre-Holocene era, at some point they become so advanced that even the most skilled flintknappers today have a time replicating them. The theory is that a craftsman "class" developed who specialized in making these tools and there was trade in them. Some of the hallmarks of "civilization" like may have actually had their infancy long before the invention of sedentary agriculture and the widespread domestication of large "prey" animals like pigs, sheep, goats and cows.
 
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I always find it fascinating that in all likelihood knifemaking is one of (if not the) oldest skills in the world. I don't imagine much else was developed between rocks, and sharp rocks
 
people in old times weren't stupid, they just didn't inheret as much knolledge as we did.
I also find articles like these fascinating
 
There are some amazing theories as to when/where people(s) began grouping, and building "cities". The dawn of civilization as it were.

The accepted idea that Neanderthal man became extinct is a looming question.
It is accepted that 40,000 years ago they vanished. As a kid I was taught they were cave men that ate BrontoBurgers. Today it is more commonly accepted that WE are direct descendants of them.

Tying back into pre-history, there are dozens of examples today of vast cities that spread over hundreds of kilometers potentially dating back over 100,000 years.
While I am not a student or scholar of pre history, I have my own theories...
The main focus (for me) is the ebb, and flow of life on this planet. There have been Numerous extinctions or more precisely "die off-s".

The chicken, and egg problem is nothing compared to whom was-----------------------------------first, and where did they come from...

Think about this... You are a nuclear physicist. Your plane goes down on an island. Are you going to build a fusion powered banana boat or are you going to begin with a hammer?
Compare that to the die off-s through the Earths history. No matter HOW MUCH any civilization knew, it died with them.

I very much like the comment from Mr. Geoff. Knife making was second only to the hammer.+-

Edit:
I can see this thread becoming VERY interesting. :cool:
 
I like the idea that fire and knives combined with the discovery of fermentation(bread, wine, and beer) is what led to farming and then towns. they have discovered evidence of wide spread trade of wine dating to 2500BC
 
I could see there being an argument that making knives is what really separated early man from the apes, and put them in the path they took.
A hammer is easy, a monkey can hit something with a rock. But figuring out that bashing one rock on another can make a sharp rock opens up the world. Not just knives, but spears and axes can't have been far behind. Then it would have became feasible to hunt bigger animals, cut down standing trees, and build other things.

To think the knifemaker was once the most revolutionary and important person in society. Unfortunately we haven't really kept up with everyone else....
 
It's funny that even today we can not make such a sharp knife as theirs knive made from obsidian volcnanic glass :p
 
The "hand axe" may have been the stone transition tool. working a piece of stone or even bone into a specialized tool is a bit of an advance from say sharpening a point on a piece of wood.
Geoff Flato said:
I could see there being an argument that making knives is what really separated early man from the apes, and put them in the path they took.
A hammer is easy, a monkey can hit something with a rock. But figuring out that bashing one rock on another can make a sharp rock opens up the world. Not just knives, but spears and axes can't have been far behind. Then it would have became feasible to hunt bigger animals, cut down standing trees, and build other things.

To think the knifemaker was once the most revolutionary and important person in society. Unfortunately we haven't really kept up with everyone else....
Click to expand...
 
Zombie411 said:
There are some amazing theories as to when/where people(s) began grouping, and building "cities". The dawn of civilization as it were.

The accepted idea that Neanderthal man became extinct is a looming question.
It is accepted that 40,000 years ago they vanished. As a kid I was taught they were cave men that ate BrontoBurgers. Today it is more commonly accepted that WE are direct descendants of them.

Tying back into pre-history, there are dozens of examples today of vast cities that spread over hundreds of kilometers potentially dating back over 100,000 years.
While I am not a student or scholar of pre history, I have my own theories...
The main focus (for me) is the ebb, and flow of life on this planet. There have been Numerous extinctions or more precisely "die off-s".

The chicken, and egg problem is nothing compared to whom was-----------------------------------first, and where did they come from...

Think about this... You are a nuclear physicist. Your plane goes down on an island. Are you going to build a fusion powered banana boat or are you going to begin with a hammer?
Compare that to the die off-s through the Earths history. No matter HOW MUCH any civilization knew, it died with them.

I very much like the comment from Mr. Geoff. Knife making was second only to the hammer.+-

Edit:
I can see this thread becoming VERY interesting. :cool:
Click to expand...
The only place I have seen anything like that 100,000 number mentioned is in the context of Atlantis theory and such. The accepted theory is that urbanization first happened more like 10-11000 years ago. For urbanization you require division of labor, specialization and people with time to do things other than catch or produce food.
 
The Australian aboriginals are known to go back approx 80,000 years.
There is presumed evidence of African cities going to 150,000 years ago.

The main focus has always been on Egypt, Rome, Persia, Inca, Mayan, Aztec and China as the oldest civilizations. That is too easy to do.
How did all these civilizations "pop" up in such a short span of time (relative).

I understand we are discussing "cities" proper, and there is much evidence of what would have been pre historic cities, and mass die offs that hid these from our view.

Assume for a moment that these new ideas/discoveries are correct... My earlier post of an intelligent person from any field of study is diminished to primal survival given a said set of circumstance. Degrees are useless when survival is paramount.

These civilizations were lost in time. The few survivors became new peoples... new races. Everyone needs food, and shelter far before they need a place to store their history.

These ideas are superseding Darwinism. Remember... we once thought the sun circled the moon.
 
I have seen no evidence of the old urbanization that you speak of. If you want to know how relatively large urban civilization (relatively speaking as a walled city of a few thousand people was large back then) popped up in a period of maybe a couple of thousand years, all you have to do it look at he advances in our own civilization in say the last 400 years. You reach a critical mass of population and perhaps more importantly, brainpower and then it goes BOOM! Places like Egypt are a good example of that critical mass. As some point maybe 5500 years ago, the combination of increasing population and encroachment of the Sahara driving people into the narrow Nile valley presented and opportunity/need and some smart and/ore aggressive folks in saw the need fro organization. Same thing in other places where the number of people required technology and organization just to feed them. The reason that larger civilizations appeared is the same reasons that technology appeared. it was needed and that need typically arose when you had enough or too many people in an area. The latest theories say that folks on the west coast of Africa may have been "sailing" in the shallow wetlands and seas before people left Africa for the second time. That was perhaps because of persistent drought inland required them to migrate to the coast and go hunting for seafood. That would explain why folks like the Aborigines were able to cross the much narrower at the time strait between New Guinea and Australia maybe 40,000 years ago, their ancestors having left Africa perhaps as long as 75,000 years ago. They may have already had the beginnings of the necessary seafaring or more accurately, "coastfaring" technology when they left Africa. With that said, a dugout canoe or reed boat is not the same as Pharoah's royal barge any more that a stone hand ax is the same as the gold dagger from Tut's tomb. Look at how long simple stone tools took to develop into the complex ones of the Neolithic age.
Zombie411 said:
The Australian aboriginals are known to go back approx 80,000 years.
There is presumed evidence of African cities going to 150,000 years ago.

The main focus has always been on Egypt, Rome, Persia, Inca, Mayan, Aztec and China as the oldest civilizations. That is too easy to do.
How did all these civilizations "pop" up in such a short span of time (relative).

I understand we are discussing "cities" proper, and there is much evidence of what would have been pre historic cities, and mass die offs that hid these from our view.

Assume for a moment that these new ideas/discoveries are correct... My earlier post of an intelligent person from any field of study is diminished to primal survival given a said set of circumstance. Degrees are useless when survival is paramount.

These civilizations were lost in time. The few survivors became new peoples... new races. Everyone needs food, and shelter far before they need a place to store their history.

These ideas are superseding Darwinism. Remember... we once thought the sun circled the moon.
Click to expand...
 
jdm61 said:
That wold explain why folks like the Aborigines were able to cross the much narrower at the time strait between New Guinea and Australia maybe 40,000 years ago their ancestors having left Africa perhaps as long as 75,000 years ago. They may have already had the beginnings of the necessary seafaring "technology" when they left Africa. With that said a dugout canoe or reed boat is not the same as Pharoah's royal barge. Look at how long simple stone tools took to develop into the complex ones of the Neolithinc age.
Click to expand...

I believe we are on the same page, it's the details that are unknown.

They are finding more details daily though.
"
(CNN)A new genomic study has revealed that Aboriginal Australians are the oldest known civilization on Earth, with ancestries stretching back roughly 75,000 years.

In a study published in the journal Nature Wednesday, a group of international researchers -- including nine Aboriginal leaders -- collected genomic data on 83 Aboriginal Australians and 25 Highland Papuans from Papua New Guinea.
The findings indicated their ancestors had diverged from Eurasians 57,000 years ago, following a single exodus from Africa around 75,000 years ago."

This is a couple years old but still relevant...
http://themindunleashed.com/2015/05...south-africa-could-rewrite-human-history.html

We don't actually know if they had barges or flying Unicorns.
That is the aspect I find fascinating. Unlimited possibilities as to where it all began.
 
Guys guys guys...the Earth, the Sun, the stars and all the galaxies are only 10,000 years old; derp, i mean 5,200 years old. And baby dinosaurs were on Noah's boat...buf the flood somehow still made them go extinct...
 
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