this is a repost of an old-style topic that's no longer in the FRchives [thanks sarcasm]
Posted on 05/25/2011 6:02:59 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
In an unexpected benefit of the cold war's end, Russian and American archaeologists say they have discovered an ancient civilization that thrived in Central Asia more than 4,000 years ago, before being lost in the sweep of history.
The people of that area, the archaeologists say, built oasis settlements with imposing mud-brick buildings and fortifications. They herded sheep and goats and grew wheat and barley in irrigated fields. They had bronze axes, fine ceramics, alabaster and bone carvings and jewelry of gold and semiprecious stones. They left luxury goods in the graves of an elite class.
The accomplishments of those unknown people in what are now the republics of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan began to emerge over several decades of excavations by archaeologists of the Soviet Union, who worked diligently but in academic silence behind closed borders...
With the end of the cold war, American archaeologists have joined the Russians in exploring the region, and now they are reporting that they have found inscriptions showing that these people may have indeed had writing, or at least were experimenting with a form of proto-writing around 2300 B.C...
In the most recent and provocative discovery, Dr. Hiebert uncovered a small stone object engraved with four or five red-colored symbols or letters that apparently bear no resemblance to any other writing system of the time. Other scholars agreed that the symbols seemed to be unlike contemporary scripts in Mesopotamia, Iran or the Indus River valley.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
this is a repost of an old-style topic that's no longer in the FRchives [thanks sarcasm]
Rethinking a History That's Carved in StoneThree months after the announcement of its discovery in Central Asia, a tiny stone object inscribed with symbols thought to be the writing of an obscure desert culture from 4,000 years ago is more of an enigma than ever.
by John Noble Wilford
July 31, 2001
If this is indeed an early form of writing, as its discoverer has suggested, it is strong evidence for a previously unknown civilization that began about 2300 B.C. across much of modern Turkmenistan and parts of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.
But some scholars challenge this theory, arguing that the signs are not true writing based on a spoken language. And, they say, one sample with three or four characters on a thumbnail-size stone is hardly sufficient to establish the existence of a writing system. On that, the discoverer, Dr. Fredrik T. Hiebert of the University of Pennsylvania, agrees.
An even more puzzling aspect of the discovery has been raised by specialists in ancient Chinese writing. They contend that the inscription bears more than a passing resemblance to Chinese writing -- not an early script, but one that was not used until about 200 B.C.
bookmark
http://www.upenn.edu/researchatpenn/article.php?301&soc
http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/1101/hughes2.html
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Lost heck; it's dead, Jim!
Noah had lots of descendants...many of which are still to be “discovered”.
OT, but what do you think inspired early people to sing? Singing is not a natural form of vocalization. I wonder why and when early people crossed that bridge from the spoken word to the sung word?
It may be related to trying to remember important or large amounts of information in the form of poems, rhymes and etc.
It could just be the Hokey Pokey
You rat! That tune is going to be spinning around in my head ALL DAY. I think they call that an “ear worm”. LOL
I see by the dates that that song was contemporary to the years I was in Jr. High (1950) when they made us dance that in PE. I’m amazed that we were so up to date in our curriculum! I had no idea where it came from.
I didn't hear the Hokey Pokey until, I guess, some time in the early 80's.
We had to do “folk dancing” in the winter. Once in a blue moon they’d open the folding doors that divided the gym and let the boys come over for folk dancing. The boys hated it. LOL
My theory is, our prehistoric ancestors included a lot of fat ladies.
In her Plato Prehistorian: 10,000 to 5000 B.C. Myth, Religion, Archaeology, Mary Settegast reproduces a table which shows four runic character sets; a is Upper Paleolithic (found among the cave paintings), b is Indus Valley script, c is Greek (western branch), and d is the Scandinavian runic alphabet.
LOL!
They made the rock world go 'round.
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