Temples Older Than Pyramids Found (In Europe)

BBC ^ | Saturday June 11 2005

[nickcarraway]

A series of temples thought to be older than Stonehenge or the Pyramids have been uncovered by a team of archaeologists working in Europe. More than 150 monuments built between 4,800 BC and 4,600 BC have been found beneath the fields of modern-day Germany, Austria and Slovakia.

They are thought to represent Europe's oldest civilisation.

The discoveries are so new that this temple building culture does not even have a name, The Independent reports.

Click here to try our ancient civilisations quiz The temples were made of earth and wood, with the buildings stretching for up to half a mile. It's thought that they were built by a religious community who lived together in "longhouses" up to 50m long.

Evidence of these buildings has been found across a 400-mile stretch of land, but it seems the civilisation died out after about 200 years.

[Abathar]

"The discoveries are so new that this temple building culture does not even have a name, The Independent reports."

They found a hundred and fifty of them over several countries and they are so new they haven't named them, but they CAN make the determination that the religious zealots worked in secret and probably felt superior to the poor huddled masses they oppressed. I am surprised they didn't just come out and say the storehouses were filled with the food taken from the poor to spoil the "religious oppressors".

what tripe.

[Graymatter]

[blam]

Excellent.

I was trying earlier to post this but we can't post from The Independent.

[RightWhale]

They don't know who they were. It is possible they were the same ones who built docks and piers [still standing, sort of] around the world at that time. Whoever it was appears to have moved on.

[blam]

"Well let's see Noah's flood was to have been in 4004 BC so the people died wonder from what."

If the Black Sea flood can be proven to be Noah's Flood, that was in 5600BC.

[fso301]

interesting

[RickGee]

Their civilisation seems to have died out after about 200 years and the recent archaeological discoveries are so new that the temple building culture does not even have a name yet.

They probably called it "communal experiment". I suggest Hillaryville.

[stands2reason]

Maybe the Germanics ancestors...

[Calvin Locke]

so the people died wonder from what.

Just tossing out that a couple of months back, the History Channel ran a piece on 'roids striking the Earth.

Eugene Shoemaker noticed on a satellite photo that an area of Germany looked liked it was hit by a big object. A
cathedral near the center of the "hit" was built of a mineral found in meteors.

No idea about the date of the impact.

[Mamzelle]

And this business of digging and refilling trenches as ritualistic? My first thought is that it had to do with drainage, perhaps management of livestock, or even waste disposal.

[JasonC]

No, there were no Germanics in Europe at this time. The Germans speak an Indo European language, and we know when the Indo-Europeans first appeared and when they spread into Europe. And it is about 2 millenia after this stuff.

[JasonC]

There are clearly for military defense. There is a whole tribe of scholars who refuse to admit war existed in the world until those nasty indo-Europeans arrived, but everybody with half a brain knows they are lying. Ditches and pallisades mean military defense against armies without seige weapons and limited ability to feed themselves for long periods of time to wait out the defenders inside. Everywhere and always.

[sonofron]

Could someone please add me to the GGG ping list.

Thanks!!

[P.O.E.]

Digging ditches and filling them back up?

Living in longhouses?

I hereby submit that we name them the Coolhandlukes.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Nick. Looks like you beat everyone to the punch:

Europe's oldest civilisation unearthed
theage.com | 6/11/05 | AFP
Posted on 06/11/2005 2:02:58 PM PDT by wagglebee
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1421054/posts

Europe's oldest civilisation unearthed: report
Yahoo/AFP | 6-11-05
Posted on 06/11/2005 9:38:16 PM PDT by STARWISE

Thanks Waggs and Starwise for the other topics, and RepublicanProfessor, blam, FairOpinion, et al for the pings.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1421238/posts

[SunkenCiv]

[second try]

Thanks Waggs and Starwise for the other topics, and RepublicanProfessor, blam, FairOpinion, et al for the pings.

Thanks Nick. Looks like you beat everyone to the punch:

Europe's oldest civilisation unearthed
theage.com | 6/11/05 | AFP
Posted on 06/11/2005 2:02:58 PM PDT by wagglebee
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1421054/posts

Europe's oldest civilisation unearthed: report
Yahoo/AFP | 6-11-05
Posted on 06/11/2005 9:38:16 PM PDT by STARWISE
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1421238/posts

[blam]

"Eugene Shoemaker noticed on a satellite photo that an area of Germany looked liked it was hit by a big object. A cathedral near the center of the "hit" was built of a mineral found in meteors."

Yup. I saw that some time back too.

[Republicanprofessor]

Any pictures? Sounds fascinating. But I'd love to see visuals.

[Bernard Marx]

The Germans speak an Indo European language, and we know when the Indo-Europeans first appeared and when they spread into Europe. And it is about 2 millenia after this stuff.

I'm not arguing with you, just wondering what your source is for that Indo-European date. Mine give 6000 B.C. as the earliest possible I-E date but say farming spread to the north European plain around 5000 B.C., and to western Europe and the Volga-Don region around 4500 B.C. My first thought on reading this article was "Maybe the first direct I-E evidence?"

[JasonC]

Read JP Mallory, "the search for the indo-europeans". They aren't remotely as old as 6000 BC. Some clues to spread come from linguistic survivals, e.g. similarities in pre-IE languages from opposite ends of the IE range. The main marker is burial practices. Farming on the other hand is not a marker of IE and predates it in Europe.