How do we know there wasn't an advanced civilization on earth 12,000 years ago?

[trurle]

It's possible that the particulates they generate from burning could be trapped in ice cores. Therefore, it would be possible to detect the fact that they existed, even if it was hard to actually find them.

I think the tech level cap for lost civilizations at "14th century level" accounts for this. That civilization may still have only short-range transport means, and therefore can be theoretically wiped out, leaving localized and yet undetected traces only.
Also, small land footprint may mean the global impacts of "14th century level" civilization can still be undetectable.

 

[Workable Goblin]

what I didn’t say that I was saying there was a mass trade network in North America stretching to osia America and using this thread classfsction for a long lasting civilization that we be able to see long after they were gone long after there were none except maybe the osiaamerica civilization

I think you're misinterpreting the point of the claim about trade. The claim was not that long-distance trade is indicative of the existence of a civilization, which the note about the flint exports probably should have indicated; rather, it was that if there was such a civilization, then its products should have diffused over long-distance trade routes away from the "lost" (flooded or whatever) area into surrounding places where they would be noticed. The lack of such anomalies therefore tends to be evidence against anomalous civilizations that were significantly more advanced than their neighbors, although it doesn't rule out less obviously anomalous civilizations.

Realistically, the only way advanced civilizations could have avoided our detection would be if they were either located in ultra-deep history so that even geological evidence would have been reprocessed by now (there isn't that much Precambrian rock left...), though in this case they would pretty much have to be aliens, or if they were only slightly 'advanced' compared to their neighbors, so that they would not be particularly obvious. In fact the latter situation almost certainly occurred at different points--there must have been various protosettlements and protocities that were part of the process of inventing agriculture and city-dwelling but which were abandoned and lost for one reason or another, and haven't been rediscovered. But this is more a matter of finding an early Jericho or Eridu, not discovering fantasy Atlantis.

 

[Derek Pullem]

Guess the OP should define what a "relatively advanced civilisation" is?

If you are following Hancock then it's classical Rome at best I think (it' hard to tell as his new thing is the "invisible world")

 

[DougM]

I am not convinced that a relatively small 14 century of earlier civilizations would HAVE to be detectable. They are not that large a population so they don’t have THAT big an effect or foot print. Add in that at that point coal was NOT the main thing burnt (actually in most pre 14 century society it was hardly burnt at all) And you are not going to convince me that wood burning in cooking fires and such shows up any different then wild fires.
The tech also is not leaving materials of particular substance behind.
As for footings and such. If they were located below current sea level or in an area that Mother Nature scribed clean say by volcanoes or mountain slides or glaciers then you would see no foundations even assuming they built substantial foundations (not a given) to be detected.
So with a small advanced civilization I think they could have been overlooked. We are not talking England during the industrial revolution. Or even something the size of Rome.
We are talking about a dark ages level small (Ish) community that may have built in a location that got covered up by moved earth, ice or water.
So let’s not fall for the belief that we are 100% certain about the history of the whole world. We are not even 100% certain what happened in ancient Egypt. If you think we are then show me proof how the Pyramids were built as well as by whom and when. We have good theories but true scientific “proof” not so much. It is very hard to truly prove something from 3000 years ago. 12,000 would be even harder.

 

[The Professor]

I am not convinced that a relatively small 14 century of earlier civilizations would HAVE to be detectable. They are not that large a population so they don’t have THAT big an effect or foot print. Add in that at that point coal was NOT the main thing burnt (actually in most pre 14 century society it was hardly burnt at all) And you are not going to convince me that wood burning in cooking fires and such shows up any different then wild fires.
The tech also is not leaving materials of particular substance behind.
As for footings and such. If they were located below current sea level or in an area that Mother Nature scribed clean say by volcanoes or mountain slides or glaciers then you would see no foundations even assuming they built substantial foundations (not a given) to be detected.
So with a small advanced civilization I think they could have been overlooked. We are not talking England during the industrial revolution. Or even something the size of Rome.
We are talking about a dark ages level small (Ish) community that may have built in a location that got covered up by moved earth, ice or water.
So let’s not fall for the belief that we are 100% certain about the history of the whole world. We are not even 100% certain what happened in ancient Egypt. If you think we are then show me proof how the Pyramids were built as well as by whom and when. We have good theories but true scientific “proof” not so much. It is very hard to truly prove something from 3000 years ago. 12,000 would be even harder.

The problem is that any civilisation more advanced than its neighbours is either going to expand into them or dominate them via trade. Their goods will be rather visible in the archaeology of those they dominate. This makes any society since the "ice age" difficult to be hidden.

 

[fasquardon]

Realistically, the only way advanced civilizations could have avoided our detection would be if they were either located in ultra-deep history so that even geological evidence would have been reprocessed by now (there isn't that much Precambrian rock left...), though in this case they would pretty much have to be aliens, or if they were only slightly 'advanced' compared to their neighbors, so that they would not be particularly obvious. In fact the latter situation almost certainly occurred at different points--there must have been various protosettlements and protocities that were part of the process of inventing agriculture and city-dwelling but which were abandoned and lost for one reason or another, and haven't been rediscovered. But this is more a matter of finding an early Jericho or Eridu, not discovering fantasy Atlantis.

Well, evidence is mounting that multicellular life was much more common in the precambrian than we once thought. The whole "Cambrian explosion" seems to have just been an explosion of conditions favourable to forming fossils, not an explosion of interesting things we'd want to see fossils of.

And there have been a few tantalizing finds from the ice age of things that look like they could be proto-herding (where bones of certain animals are super common and look like they've been cooked and eaten, and when those animals are of a species that was later domesticated, also, they may have found evidence of a pen that giant sloths were kept in - my memory may be wrong on that though) and there's the way most hunter-gatherer cultures manage the plants they gather, with some plants even being gardened.

The evidence is weak, but there's a real possibility that some steps occurred much earlier than we have solid evidence for. There's nothing to indicate full agriculture though.

We are talking about a dark ages level small (Ish) community that may have built in a location that got covered up by moved earth, ice or water.

In the dark ages, something like 50 million people lived in Europe, maybe as much as 90 million, and while long-distance trade had declined, there was still trade across Europe and with the Muslim world and through them, the world beyond.

You make good points about the uncertainties that build up as we go back in time. But this isn't like the small uncertainty about the exact date the pyramids were built, this is the existence of some level of city-dwelling people. The less developed the civilization and the more time between us and them, the easier they are to miss, but 12,000 years ago is relatively recent.

fasquardon

 

[rfmcdonald]

I am not convinced that a relatively small 14 century of earlier civilizations would HAVE to be detectable. They are not that large a population so they don’t have THAT big an effect or foot print. Add in that at that point coal was NOT the main thing burnt (actually in most pre 14 century society it was hardly burnt at all) And you are not going to convince me that wood burning in cooking fires and such shows up any different then wild fires.

Lead released from Roman smelting is detectable in Greenland ice cores.

https://arstechnica.com/science/201...-roman-lead-pollution-in-year-by-year-detail/

Indeed, output from Rome and Han China seems to have contributed to climate change.

https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/10/04/3603567.htm

Reliable records of the content of the atmosphere go back one million years, at least.

https://www.nbi.ku.dk/english/news/news13/greenland-ice-cores-reveal-warm-climate-of-the-past/

 

[catalfalque]

It's also possible that there are remains, and we just don't understand it. I watched a very interesting lecture on Jordan, and all the neolithic houses, "kites" etc in the desert. There were clearly a large number of people there then, largely, at least, sedentiary, and civilised in many regards.

 

[Mark E.]

It's also possible that there are remains, and we just don't understand it. I watched a very interesting lecture on Jordan, and all the neolithic houses, "kites" etc in the desert. There were clearly a large number of people there then, largely, at least, sedentiary, and civilised in many regards.

As time goes on, you're going to see more discoveries of ancient settlements that failed to leave traces that connect to the known progression of civilization. I might think Mexico and South America have the greatest potential for yet-undiscovered early bronze age communities.

 

[Arkenfolm]

As time goes on, you're going to see more discoveries of ancient settlements that failed to leave traces that connect to the known progression of civilization. I might think Mexico and South America have the greatest potential for yet-undiscovered early bronze age communities.

Very likely (especially considering the long-existing issues of looting), but they wouldn't be much more than a few thousand years old.

 

[sloreck]

All of the "evidence" for such a civilization is basically looking at something unusual, like the Naszca lines, or some anomalies of various sorts. If there had been an "advanced" civilization 12,000 years ago, and I mean really advanced, there would be some evidence. Yes a localized civilization that was ahead of other neolithic civilizations that was wiped out in a geologic catastrophe like Santorini is possible, but that is not really advanced as some of the folks who believe in Atlantis or the aliens etc talk about. Arguments in favor of this are like some of the "young earth" folks who show an anomaly or two and say "see this disproves that the earth is older than "x" years" or absent the bones of a half human half chimp say "no evidence for evolution". There is lots of evidence that such an ancient significantly advanced civilization did not exist, and little if any evidence it did - lots of "what if" and speculation.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. If you are making a claim that contradicts the vast bulk of evidence (not guesses/speculation/religious dogma but EVIDENCE) don't bring a knife to a gun fight.

 

[iscariot]

12,000 Years Ago, we were already very advanced. It is because we choose to view history through anno domini that we misrepresents the age of human civilization.

Of course, your average human is very ignorant about history and still think the Pyramids were amazing and that aliens must have built them because humans couldn't possibly have done it (snort). I have people try and tell me that even with our modern technology we couldn't build pyramids (hahaha).

For such folks, human civilization existed merely a couple thousands years ago, despite the fact human civilization have been around as far back as 50,000 years ago. In matter fact, the majority of our technological civilization and the development of language was from 3.3 million to 11,650 years ago.

During the last Ice Age, Humans migrated to and lived EVERYWHERE that wasn't covered by ice.

By all measures, 12,000 years ago we were VERY advanced by the standards of the rest of our species existence. And new evidence constantly proves that many milestones occurred earlier than we thought. We found thrown spear hunting weapons from 30,000 years ago. Pottery fragments in China from 20,000 years ago. POTTERY!

And of course, the famous Göbekli Tepe standing stones from 12,000 years ago, with art and sophistication we would associate with classical era civilizations.

People choose not to see the beauty, art, and incredible sophistication in neolithic and Palaeolithic civilizations.

They choose to ignore the innovations of homonids, as if fire and tool-making was something unremarkable.

Instead, they insist aliens, atlantis, and UFOs must have a part in "advanced civilizations", when no such things were ever needed.

That being said, I do believe that there have been industrial civilizations (not necessarily homonid) on Earth millions of years ago, in deep time. But, they are dead and gone, and are unlikely to have anything to do with our species' long history. There is only a small window of time for evidence to remain from industrial civilizations whose byproducts, manufacturing, emissions, and radio signals make their existence obvious. Most probably either never achieve the industrial revolution, or they did and quickly moved past it into greener, cleaner, more advanced technologies that leaves no trace. This is also probably why we have trouble finding evidence of "industrial" aliens civilizations. They are either too primitive or too advanced to have industrial civilization that we can detect.

 

[A Most Sovereign Lady]

No person I've ever met thinks aliens built the pyramids what the hell are you talking about.

 

[Richard V]

Chlorite bracelet allegedly made by Denisovans 40,000 years ago:

https://www.archaeology.org/news/3270-150507-siberia-denisovan-bracelet

 

[RGB]

No person I've ever met thinks aliens built the pyramids what the hell are you talking about.

But I saw it on the History Channel!

 

[water123]

Don't ask questions like thiiiisssss, you make the anthropologist inside of me want to aggressively turn several boards into fine sawdust by agressively slamming into it with my head. Not that it's a bad question, but because there's just so much we don't know. For one, there could easily be civilizations in the Sahara or the Tarim Basin or other regions that are no longer suitable for people to live in in vast numbers. Not to mention, so, so, SO much history has been lost. So many books have been destroyed, and many others just never written down. If it happened, imagine the wealth of knowledge lost in the burning of books and burying of scholars. Not to mention new discoveries are made all the time. Hell, a few years ago it was considered groundbreaking that Native Americans may have arrived in the Americas as early as 13,000 BC. Now, there is evidence that they were here as early as 75,000 BC.

We CAN say for certain the kind of genetic shuffling that has occured over the past few hundred years has only occured once before, right after Humans left Africa. Everyone alive today who is not African, and even some who are African, are descended from Y-group L3, even though there are Y-groups L0-6. There are also linguistic things. 42 percent of earth speaks a language in a group that only arose at MOST 6000 years ago. Hell, white people are only 8,000 years old, and blue eyes are only 8-10 thousand. There are still people who don't recognize the achievements of people who are still alive to tell us about them. Would we as a society be able to recognize a city made by people who's world was fundamentally different from our own?

Like, seriously. Let's say, for the sake of argument, right after I post this, I scroll over to google news and see that archaeologists just dug up a 50,000 year old city in the Sahara. The things we find there would be just so different that it would shatter our concept of history. What would their city be built out of? Stone? Ceramic? Who knows! What language would they speak? Let's say we luck out and they have some kind of written language on clay or particularly durable papyrus that, mixed with the preserving conditions of the Sahara, would last until today. Would we even recognize what was there as writing? Would we think it was art? I know that we say "hurr durr math is the universal language," but what if they didn't even use Base 10? Even in OTL, there were cultures who use base 12 and base 60 math. Would we be able to recognize that they were trying to say "48" in a base-144 system and not a word? Would we be able to see societal stratification? What would they have eaten? Would they have any concept of marriage at all? That's not even factoring in that the minute the sand is off the ruins, time is ticking to get as much info as possible before it inevitably erodes.

Taking a deep breath after looking into the time abyss, there are a few things we know. I've always been interested in "orphan ethnic groups," folks who don't really mix with the languages or cultures around them, like Basque for example. Sometimes, these "orphans" can have utterly ancient ties. Take the Andamans, for example. The languages of the Andaman islands are utterly unique, with very few links even being considered to other languages. At one point, there was a lot of evidence suggesting that the languages spoken in the Andamans and the languages of Paupa New Guinea were related. However, its looking more like they both were influenced by a similar, even more ancient and mysterious language. In fact, "Negrito" groups throughout Southeast Asia are a testament to absolutely ancient humans who lived throughout these areas. Not to mention, you get these little "history snippets" that ultimately make you just stand in shock but then realize that it is litearlly impossible to acquire any more information about any of it since the speakers of the language or rememberers of the history are long gone. Take the Paredarerme language of Ancient Tasmania, for example. Riiight before it went extinct, evidence was mounting that the Paredarerme language might actually be a language isolate, a remnant from a population even more ancient than Aboriginal Australians, who, for scale, have oral memories of significant events up to 40,000 years ago well into the last Ice Age. Just so, so so much history is gone because some European dipwad thought that using the local natives for target practice was a great idea, especially in the Americas and in Australia (the Khoisan count too, but southern Africa has been the site of many human migrations, and so just how old Khoisan is exactly is up to debate. It is still tens of thousands of years old mind you, but it wasn't quite the absolute time abyss it was being made out to be for a while, or at least the evidence doesn't support that theory anymore), but i'd start getting real angry if I started talking about that so I'm gonna move on.


So basically, was there a civilization before us? Who knows? Even though they definitely didn't reach industrial levels, we would be able to tell, we can't rule out powerful city states and etc. And, unfortunately, the people who would be able to even have faint memories of these mystery empires are long dead. Or are they? This is why anthropology and shit is important. Who knows? An old woman in a coffee shop in Manilla could totally know about how terrifyingly ancient humans built massive ships and discovered the world even before most of it was settled, but no one has asked her about it. Yet.

Tl;dr: The past is as massive, vast, and terrifying as space or the ocean and the longer I stare into it the more the allure of the ancients calls to me like a mystical anthem across a dead, starlit sea.


And the fact that anthropologists and cultural scientists could look for generations for this sort of thing and never find anything, while an old grandma somewhere in Australia or India or the Philippines or Brazil probably just got through telling her grandkids about how thousands of years ago massive cities dotted the globe and the exact locations of a few of them but they don't care because "history is boring nerd stuff" only makes me unendingly angry.

 

[Workable Goblin]

Let's say we luck out and they have some kind of written language on clay or particularly durable papyrus that, mixed with the preserving conditions of the Sahara, would last until today. Would we even recognize what was there as writing? Would we think it was art?

The Voynich Manuscript suggests that, yeah, there would at least be some people who would think it was writing. There's also the example of the Indus script, the Vinča symbols, and other hieroglyphic writing and proto-writing systems that people have worked for decades to try to decipher despite the possibility that some of them are indeed some kind of art or decoration. It might not be the majority interpretation--probably more likely if it's found on papyrus or clay tablets, less likely if it's just on pottery or other plausibly decorative objects--but there would certainly be people who would think just about anything was writing. It probably wouldn't be decipherable--how could it be?--but that doesn't necessarily mean people wouldn't think it was writing.

I know that we say "hurr durr math is the universal language," but what if they didn't even use Base 10? Even in OTL, there were cultures who use base 12 and base 60 math. Would we be able to recognize that they were trying to say "48" in a base-144 system and not a word?

Depending on the context, maybe. More likely if it's in some kind of equation or recognizable context that calls for a number, less likely if it's just embedded in a text. The common historical practice of labeling numbers with letters or other textual elements would obviously make it harder.

An old woman in a coffee shop in Manilla could totally know about how terrifyingly ancient humans built massive ships and discovered the world even before most of it was settled, but no one has asked her about it. Yet.

This would basically be Philippine Atlantis, which, well...sure, maybe it's true. On the other hand, there are people in India who will tell you that their ancestors had spaceships and nuclear weapons, but no one takes the Vedas seriously as a historical source except in extremely general, anthropological terms. I don't think anyone would actually believe "old grandma" without physical evidence, in all honesty.

Anyway, what you've said is what everyone else in the thread has said. There might have been civilizations in localized areas that were "advanced" by the standards of the day, but any really widespread societies that were "advanced" probably would have been discovered by now, and anything with technology levels comparable to the modern day almost certainly would have been discovered now thanks to global pollution impacts.

 

[iscariot]

This would basically be Philippine Atlantis, which, well...sure, maybe it's true. On the other hand, there are people in India who will tell you that their ancestors had spaceships and nuclear weapons, but no one takes the Vedas seriously as a historical source except in extremely general, anthropological terms. I don't think anyone would actually believe "old grandma" without physical evidence, in all honesty.

The Austronesian/Polynesians did basically exactly that, populated the world via sea I mean, although the Australo-Melanasians were even more impressive. They apparently reached America BEFORE the ancestors of the Native Americans did (there are little surviving genetic traces of them in America however), and their descendants populated a major chunk of the Maritime Southeast Asia and Oceania, though the Austronesian Expansion displaced a lot of those.

A Philippines Atlantis (or rather, an South-East Asian Atlantis), sounds like Sundaland. The Out-of-Sundaland model suggest that the actual homeland of the Austronesians is Sundaland, and the islands of the South East Asia and Oceania were the surviving remnants (instead of Taiwan, which is the nominally accepted Austronesia). This is a minority view however, most still believe that Taiwan is the Austronesian Homeland (even though there are back and forth migration from islands to the mainland, and then all the way to Haiwaii).

Excerpt: "Sundaland is a bio-geographical region of Southeastern Asia which encompasses the Sunda shelf, the part of the Asian continental shelf that was exposed during the last Ice Age. The last glacial period, popularly known as the Ice Age, was the most recent glacial period within the current Ice Age occurring during the last years of the Pleistocene, from approximately 110,000 to 12,000 years ago. It included the Malay Peninsula on the Asian mainland, as well as the large islands of Kalimantan, Java, and Sumatera and their surrounding islands. The eastern boundary of Sundaland is the Wallace Line, identified by Alfred Russel Wallace as the eastern boundary of the range of Asia’s land mammal fauna, and thus the boundary of the Indomalaya and Australasia ecozones. The islands east of the Wallace line are known as Wallacea, and are considered part of Australasia. It is worth noting that it is now generally accepted that South East Asia was probably the entry point of modern humans from Africa."

https://atlantisjavasea.com/2015/09/29/sundaland/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundaland

 

[Workable Goblin]

The Austronesian/Polynesians did basically exactly that, populated the world via sea I mean

Sure, I mean I live in Hawaii. I wouldn't exactly characterize Polynesian double-hull canoes as "massive ships," though.

A Philippines Atlantis (or rather, an South-East Asian Atlantis), sounds like Sundaland.

Sundaland is more like Doggerland than like Atlantis; the key thing about the latter is that it's supposed to be a super-advanced precursor civilization, and the whole "sinking into the sea" is more of a convenient explanation for why it's not around any longer. A story about some super-advanced ancient Filipino civilization would be too similar to stories about Atlantis or Mu or Lemuria to take seriously without physical evidence.

 

[YusaEmi]

I believe it is possible that some kind of "advanced" civilization existed in the last Ice Age. But their level of advancement was that of Rome at the absolute best. Frankly, I think once a civilization becomes advanced enough it becomes global, and with that something from that civilization surviving after it's downfall is extremely likely.