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World History

Welcome to Greece and Pakistan!

instrument tray on table

Welcome to Greece!

Welcome to 7000 B.C.!

Welcome to Pakistan!

Surprise!

Welcome to Greece and Pakistan!

It’s time to move on, both in location and history. But first, let’s recap what has been happening in Greece. It’s not much.

Welcome to Greece!

Greece was inhabited by hunter-gatherers like many other lands before the time of the flood. (A significant hiatus noted by archeologists in the geological layers probably relates to the flood.) Greece then was re-occupied.

Although there are several sites available, Franchthi Cave demonstrates occupation for all time periods prior to 3000 B.C. We’ll be using that site for our information.

The re-occupation continued until the first building of Göbekli Tepe. During this time, wild lentils, pistachios, and almonds were added to meat discoveries. The steppe ass continued to be the meat of choice. Land snails were popular on the menu.

At the very end of this period, red deer became the most popular meat. Bits of obsidian that have been traced to the island of Melos began to appear. Melos is 92 miles southeast. Apparently, these people possessed navigational skills.

After the appearance of the Egyptian Faiyum culture, the people of the Franchthi Cave learned to produce micro-flaked blades. Now, the diet is red deer supplemented with pig and small fish.

About the time the Swiderians moved on, the Greeks of the cave changed their diet from large animals to large fish, indicating more advanced seafaring. At this time the waters of the Mediterranean Sea had encroached upon the shoreline almost up to the cave.

The oldest burial is dated from the end of this period. A twenty-six year old man lays toward the entrance to the cave on a deposit of burned shell. Scattered bones indicate that this area was also used for cremation burials.

A five hundred year occupation hiatus occurs. Perhaps the cave was flooded and therefore unable to be occupied.

Then, for a considerable time, the cave indicates domestication of wheat, sheep, and goats. Obsidian is found more frequently. The few pots are small and could not be used for cooking.

Welcome to 7000 B.C.!

According to TGD (traditional geological dating), it’s 7000 B.C.: 1000 years since the Swiderians left Göbekli Tepe. The Faiyum culture is going strong.

Those living in the Franchthi Cave have progressed to Urfimis: pottery for serving, not cooking, decorated with geometric designs. (Where have we heard that before?) Small shell beads and amulets are common, as well as tools for making them.

For the first time, structures are built on the beach in front of the cave.

Within the cave, many more burials exist including numerous infant burials. One of them contained the grave goods of a small marble bowl and a broken ceramic vessel.

None of these Greek settlements have been dignified with the classification of a culture.

Welcome to Pakistan!

It’s much different in 7000 B.C. Pakistan.

A small farming village is settled at Mehrgarh. Surprisingly, it is not on a river.

However, it is located near Bolan Pass, one of the main routes connecting southern Afghanistan and the Indus Valley. Obviously, there is enough trade potential in this village and the Indus Valley to encourage treks through the treacherous mountains.

Mehrgarh was built as a base camp by semi-nomadic people. During this first period, which would last until 5500 B.C., the settlement was used to cultivate six-row barley, emmer wheat, jujubes, and dates. They domesticated sheep, goats, and cattle.

Mud-brick buildings contained four rooms. There was no pottery for cooking or serving. Tools were made of local copper. Grain was stored in granaries using large bitumen-lined baskets.

There is no evidence of government or religion. However many burials have been found complete with generous grave goods: baskets, stone and bone tools, and occasional animal sacrifices. Ornaments abound: beads, bangles, and pendants. These were made from sea shells, the precious stones of turquoise and lapis lazuli, limestone and sandstone, and polished copper. Simple figures of women and animals also appear. Male burials contain the majority of grave goods.

Surprise!

In this oldest area of Merhgarh, evidence was found of dentistry! A dozen molar crowns still in place have been found which were drilled while the person was alive.

With what? I don’t think copper tools would be strong enough to do that. No dental tools have been found. How did dentistry happen to develop here, in this remote place? Who was this first dentist?

Photo credit: Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Categories
World History

Göbekli Tepe: What Have We Learned?

held upright fork

We’ve spent a lot of time on Göbekli Tepe. We’re done. It’s time to “put a fork in it” and examine what we have learned.

The facts are what we see at the site. The rest is speculation.

What is the strongest line of logic?

  1. The site must have been chosen for a purpose since there were so many negatives: scaling the highest mountain in the range and hauling supplies up to it, no fresh water, quarries some distance away, and ignorant locals. That purpose seems to have been an unobstructed view of the sky. It was the world’s first observatory.
  2. The site was probably engineered and supervised by the Swiderians, who seemed to have the habit of absorbing knowledge of various groups they encountered in their travels, synthesizing that knowledge, and using it to control the local population.
  3. The Swiderians had engineering knowledge we don’t have, at least regarding how to erect the structures with only tools of stone and wood. They probably had knowledge of sailing. What else did they know for which they left us no clues?
  4. The local population consisted of hunter-gatherers and, therefore, they moved from site to site. This disproves the theory that culture always arises from hunter-gatherers who subsequently adopted agriculture.
  5. Göbekli Tepe required a large work force, but no settlements have been found. Nor are there dwelling places within the site.
  6. With the observatory, and the catalog of animals carved into T pillars, it seems that Göbekli Tepe was the first university. People came to learn, then returned to their homelands.
  7. If you believe the Genesis account, learning would have been easy because everyone was already closely related by blood and spoke the same language.
  8. The Swiderian belief system was different from other cultures. Instead of man being an equal part of the world with animals, the enormous humanoid T Pillars that dwarf carvings of animals indicate that man was now considered of supreme importance.
  9. Ideograms were used. It also seems that at least some groups of carvings are positioned purposefully to give information.
  10. As tempting as it is to call this a temple, the logic seems to be very weak. One can’t say that later similar structures were temples and therefore this one is, because this site is the first and later structures could be corruptions…as we see within Göbekli Tepe itself. There is no altar. Feasts can be held without religion. There are no burials, as are often seen with later religious sites. We don’t know what the ideograms and carved groups mean.

     Let’s look at the vulture with the circle on its wing. It doesn’t have to be a vulture cult. First, the carved vultures are far from being large enough to be the religious center. If the circle does represent a human soul, the carving does not have to mean that the vulture, the bird of death, is responsible for transporting the soul to its final destination. It could be simply a statement of belief that after death the person lives on.

  1. If there is religion at the site, it would probably be centered on the most impressive structures: the seeing stone and the humanoid T pillars. If the pillars represent gods, that would indicate religion, but they could just as easily represent heroes or ancestors.
  2. The navigation they learned from Western Europe and the massive architectural structure imply an extensive use of mathematics. In navigation, the captain has to know how to plot his position and how to navigate to his destination.

In architecture, the Swiderians didn’t choose the circle, a shape easily made with a stake and a string. Instead, they preferred an oval.

Maybe they had someone who could freehand an oval the size of a structure, but that would be washed out by the next rain. Perhaps they knew advanced geometry using stakes, lines, and arcs to construct one. Or they knew the algebraic formula for the perimeter of an oval: π × (a + b) [1 + (3 × h/ (10 + √ (4 – 3h)))].

  1. The final mystery: why were the various structures filled in? The ones most carefully packed with skulls and tools and construction rubbish and dirt would have been constructed under Swiderians. The best guess is that they were already constructing the next enclosure because of a shift in the constellations they chose to observe. The first enclosure was packed carefully, almost reverently, as no longer useful.

     The second one was packed almost as carefully, but damage was done or it was completely emptied before being backfilled.

The Swiderians seem to have left during the construction of the third enclosure, leaving ignorant workers whose construction and later backfilling was sloppy.

Göbekli Tepe and the advances in knowledge that it represents are truly mysterious and awe inspiring!

Photo credit: Valiant Made on Unsplash

Categories
World History

The Dominators!

black sphere in palm

A Different Look

The Journey

Vanishing Point

The Dominators!

     The Swiderians were a different kind of people. They looked different. They traveled west to east: opposite of all other cultures. The restless people didn’t stay long in most places, as seen by relatively few hunting remains. Traversing the treacherous territory of Eastern Europe and the western Near East required humans of tremendous willpower and endurance.

     Like vacuum cleaners, the Swiderians sucked up the cultures, skills, territory, resources, and learning of others until they emerged the dominant culture.

A Different Look

     The Swiderians had skulls that were dolichocephalic. That is, the anterior-posterior length was unusually long compared to the width of the skull. Their faces were thin with prominent and massive brow ridges, slanted foreheads, high cheekbones, and strong chins. They were significantly taller and larger than other people.

The Journey

     Swiderian travels can be traced by their unique tanged and leaf shaped points. We see settlements first along the Vistula, Oder, and Warta Rivers of northern Poland. The Swiderians then ranged east to settle on the Dneiper, Volga, Oka, and Don Rivers in Russia.

      Then came a major shift: in central Poland the Swiderians developed efficient mining of exotic forms of flint, hematite, and ochre. They commanded these important resources of paint and points and discovered that they loved to trade.

     But the Polish mines lacked the volcanic glass called obsidian that everyone craved for scalpel-sharp points on weapons and tools. The Swiderians set out toward the known sites of this mineral, determined to dominate that trade also.

     They traveled south into the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, which held three sources of obsidian.

     From there, some continued south to the Crimea. Whereas there were no sources of obsidian in the Crimea, the area has always been a trade crossroads. Perhaps that it why the Crimea was chosen as their destination. And there, the Swiderians would have met the Zarzians!

     It was probably the eastern Swinderians who travelled south to the Caucasus Mountains where there were five sources of obsidian.

     A short but difficult trip south from there would find them reaching the three sites in the Armenian highlands—and the Zarzian mines.

 Vanishing Point

   It is at this time in history when the Zarzians, their unique culture, and their trade empire vanish.

     Were the Zarzians forced to give up their trade by right of conquest? Perhaps.

     But the Swiderians seem to be more inclined to diplomacy, perhaps sharing cultures and knowledge with the Zanzians.

     Then, like an amoeba, they may have figuratively surrounded the Zanzians and absorbed them into an enriched Swiderian culture.

Suggested reading:

Collins, Andrew. Göbekli Tepe: Genesis of the Gods. Bear & Company, Rochester, Vermont, 2014, p. 168-194, 215-217.

Photo credit: Julia Bogdan at Unsplash